


you were a kindness (when i was a stranger)

by morian



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, One Night Stands, Recreational Drug Use, Snowed In, Strangers to Lovers, eddie is having a midlife crisis, richie is having some sort of crisis too probably
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:01:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 54,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25864033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morian/pseuds/morian
Summary: "I'm just saying. You haven't shut up about wanting to fuck a stranger since you left Myra,” Bev says. “He's a stranger who is down to fuck. What are you twiddling your thumbs for?"Eddie sighs. He chews on a bit of soggy bell pepper and considers it. Finally he says, "I just worry it'll be bad."Bev laughs. "Sex with strangers often is.""Oh, great! That's just what I wanted to hear!""C'mon, Eddie," she says. "What's the worst that could happen?"OR:Eddie and Richie try to have a one-night stand and get snowed in together.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 170
Kudos: 941





	1. PART I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings:  
> Recreational drug use (weed), alcohol consumption, descriptions of emotional abuse in line with canon material (Myra Kaspbrak)

When Eddie had made the difficult-but-not-as-difficult-as-it-maybe-should-have-been decision to leave his wife of twelve years, after months of lunch-break phone calls with Bev telling him over and over again that _no, marriage counselling is not going to fix this, you need to get the fuck out of your mother's metaphorical house and get dicked down, or maybe dick someone down, who am I to judge_ , he had thought for a brief, exhilarating moment that this was it. That Hollywood moment where everything changes, the turning point, the call to action. The instrumental crescendo builds up, up, up, and the audience holds its breath, and the hero tears himself from the relative comfort of his old life and sets out to save the world, or his friends, or himself.

Eighteen months later, the hero sits in his white-walled, impersonal office on the sixth floor of a Manhattan high-rise and tabs through the same fucking spreadsheet he was looking at around the time he left Myra. He is wearing the tie he wore on his first day as a separated man, not quite single yet because a divorce takes time, unfortunately, way too much time, and instead of being a symbol of his independence it is still just a fucking tie. Navy blue with silver stripes, made of real silk, a nice tie but still a fucking tie. He didn't burn it like Bev had suggested, because it cost him forty dollars and Saheli from HR had once told him it complemented his skin tone, which he scoffed at then but has since turned over in his head a million times, carried in the palm of his hand like a fragile thing, the only compliment anyone who wasn't Bev had paid him in years. Myra's never counted because they came with the suffocating implication that no one else would ever feel that way about him, that no one ever could, whether she meant it like that or not.

The spreadsheet has taken on new dimensions in the year and a half since the summer of 2017 — an awful, humid summer that had crawled through the city like a nightmarish, slobbering creature, its breath a hot gust that smelled of garbage and melting rubber, which made Eddie's grand escape from matrimony all the more anticlimactic. What he needed then was a light summer breeze, clear skies and a sense of freedom, and what he got was pit stains and adult acne from how oily the humidity made him. 

So, the spreadsheet. It is a sprawling thing, with twenty-two different sheets, and detailed diagrams he has spent maybe a little too much time on, colour-coded everything and a frankly astonishing amount of 8 point sized comments on each page. But no client has ever been mad at him for being too thorough. In fact, several returning clients have requested _Mr. Kaspbrak_ specifically for this reason, and as much as working here makes him feel dead inside these days, he gets a little kick out of knowing he is the best at what he does.

If this was a work-related spreadsheet, whichever company he was making it for would likely request him again next time. But it's not. A work related spreadsheet, that is.

Bev calls it _Ed's Declassified Midlife Crisis Guide._ Eddie calls it _just being thorough, thank you very much._

He would love to be able to say he is doing this on company time. Sticking it to the man, and all that — wait, is _he_ the man? But unfortunately he isn't the kind of person to slack off at work, no matter how much he might want to. He is the kind of person who finds the idea of taking more than his usual two coffee breaks a little overwhelming, and no amount of getting divorced and throwing himself face-first into a midlife crisis can make him not be that person anymore.

So instead he is meticulously adding hyperlinks to the sheet dedicated to gay venues in New York on his lunch break. The tupperware box containing his leftover zoodles and vegetarian bolognese sauce from the night before stands half-eaten to his right, still lukewarm fifteen minutes after being blitzed to near-death in the office microwave down the hall. It's not a particularly inspiring meal; in his 'Nutrition’ section of the spreadsheet there is a little 5/10 next to the link to the recipe. He thinks he will probably keep finding bits of oregano in his teeth all day and he considers going to the bathroom to brush them, but the idea of someone walking in on that is simply too mortifying. Brushing your teeth is a bit like baring your throat — vulnerable, intimate. Not something he wants to do in the office bathroom, although he does carry a toothbrush and a small bottle of solid toothpaste tablets with him pretty much wherever he goes.

Bev told him it's a little slutty when she found out about that.

"It's not for sex! It's not a sexy toothbrush!" Eddie had shrieked. "Nothing slutty about being prepared."

She had looked at him with barely concealed amusement. "I think it's a little slutty. It will come in handy on a one-night stand."

"There will be no one-night stands."

The toothbrush is for emergencies. Anything could happen to him, especially in New York. What if he gets snowed in at work and has to stay overnight? What if he accidentally orders a garlic-heavy dish at lunch and has a meeting afterwards? What if he ends up in a hostage situation on his weekly run to the bank? 

There is nothing slutty about his toothbrush. He is only being sensible. 

And besides, there really aren't any one-night stands in his future. And this is not because of an inherent disdain for the concept of casual sex, it's more the fact that he is a forty year old workaholic with no social connections beyond his childhood best friend and Mrs. Nair, his elderly neighbour who keeps chickens in her apartment and invites him to dinner once a week because he reminds her of her dead son.

No, really, Eddie would love to have the toothbrush for slutty reasons. He actually wants nothing more than to say to Bev, _Yes, I keep this on me because of all the dick I'm getting._

He copy and pastes a link to the website of a gay bar in Brooklyn into the spreadsheets and then saves and exits out of the document. The digital clock on his desk reads 12:53pm. He stabs at his zoodles unenthusiastically, takes another bite, and wishes he had just cooked real spaghetti.

At 12:54pm, his phone vibrates where it lies face down on the dark wood of the desk. It's the kind of vibration that is generally reserved for messages, not the quieter one he gets for all the unnecessary push notifications he is bombarded with and doesn't know how to turn off. He stares at it for a good twenty seconds. Bev is currently on a plane somewhere above Virginia on her way back from some trade fair in Atlanta, and there is really no one else who would text him at any time of the day, but particularly before 5pm.

He picks the phone up warily and turns it over in his hand, unlocks it with a touch of his fingerprint. It's a Grindr notification. He didn't know that he still had Grindr, had actually been certain that he deleted it during a late night breakdown last month, but no, the orange icon sits innocently on the second page of his home screen.

The bar at the top of his screen tells him he has one (1) new message. He thumbs across to open it, feeling more than a little suspicious.

 **Dick_Toze [12:54pm]** **  
** _nice suit, you a wall street bro?_

Eddie blinks at the message and tries to remember what pictures he uploaded on his profile. None with his face visible, that’s for sure. A gym selfie, he thinks, one that starts below the neck. He must have let Bev talk him into uploading a suit picture as well — she said it would make him look sophisticated. Eddie thinks it makes him look like he’s trying too hard.

He taps on Dick_Toze’s profile. Just one picture, no face visible but tantalisingly shirtless and unfortunately exactly the kind of guy Eddie dreams of at night. Broad-shoulders and a slight curve to his chest, a dusting of curly dark hair all the way from the sternal notch to the waistband of his shorts. Long fingers on the edge of the frame, and a veiny forearm. A soft, protruding stomach, not necessarily chubby but — something. It’s something.

He scrolls down.

**Dick_Toze, 41**

**Online now**

**1.3 miles away**

**here for a good time, not a long time. getting laughed at professionally**

**Height: 6’1**

**Body type: Average**

**Position: Bottom Vers**

**Relationship Status: Single**

**Looking for: Chat, Dates, Right Now**

**Accept NSFW Pics: Yes Please**

**Meet at: My Place, Your Place, Bar**

**HIV Status: Negative**

Eddie scrolls back up to look at the picture one more time, his gaze getting stuck on the lovely curve of the guy’s shoulder, the sharp lines of his collarbones, then he exits out of the app. Not for lack of interest, not because he’s scared but because— because he has work to do.

Yes. He has work to do.

It isn’t until that night in the quiet cold of his apartment that he thinks of the message again. He is lounging on his sofa and the living room flickers with the light of the TV, reruns of some soap he’s never seen. While he watches the colours change on his white ceiling, he strokes a lazy palm along his dick, through two layers of fabric. It’s that late-night warmth in his belly, easy enough to ignore but even easier to indulge in. He lets his thoughts wander. That isn’t something that comes natural to him unless he’s high — which he is now. Just barely, a hazy body high from half a joint smoked out of his kitchen window.

Like most good things in his life, it was Bev who first got him into weed. She taught him how to roll properly when he visited her in her college dorm in Brooklyn, just a few miles from where he lives now. Back when they were nineteen and she was studying at FIT, when he still lived with his mother, terrified to leave her. He spent a week with her that winter, squeezed into her tiny single bed and shivering through a storm, and in the daytime they stomped through the thick snow so she could show him her new home. A year later he had followed her to New York, the first thing he ever did for himself and, for a long time, the last.

He actually still gets his weed through Bev now because he finds the idea of meeting some stranger on a street corner for it very off-putting and Bev is good friends with her dealer, some woman named Leila who has eighteen piercings and makes a mean banana bread. Leila insists on calling Eddie ‘buddy’ and keeps inviting him to her monthly poker nights, and in the ten years he’s known her he has never once gone. This is probably at least part of the reason that Eddie hasn’t made a friend in twenty-five years while Bev seems to pick them up wherever she goes — his utter inability to get out of his head long enough to say yes to something ridiculous, like a poker night with his best friend’s drug dealer. 

When he was still with Myra he only smoked every few months, whenever the stars aligned and he got to spend a night at Bev’s, usually when Myra was visiting her sister upstate. Now he smokes a handful of days a week, though still not excessively. It’s a habit, sure, and one he might struggle to break, but he is not a _stoner_ by any definition of the word. It helps him unwind (god knows he needs it) and it’s something to do on nights like this, the slow and lonely ones that go on and on and on with no end in sight. Nights where all there is for him to do is put on his running gear and run down to Shore Road Park, catch his breath on a bench overlooking the bridge, to pick up speed on the way back until all he can hear is the pulsing rush of blood in his ears, the pounding of his feet on the pavement, and then to roll a joint in his dressing gown after a hot shower.

Nights like this one, where there’s only reruns on TV and in his head, a familiar spiral into some anxious abyss. Weed helps to knock him off that course, helps to settle his stomach.

It’s almost midnight now and he should really go to bed, but he is already halfway hard and so he might as well, right? He pushes his sweatpants down enough so he can get his fist around his dick and gives it a few light strokes to get it from halfway to fully there. Shifts into a more comfortable position, his neck propped up against the sofa cushion, and tries to think of vaguely sexy things, combing his brain for inspiration and getting stuck on the image of a hairy chest, broad shoulders and thick arms fresh in his memory.

He hadn’t really thought about **Dick_Toze** (and what the fuck is up with that name, honestly) since his lunch break, distracted by a truly annoying client file that cost him his second coffee break of the day, but now he lets himself go there. Imagines what he might look like outside the frame, thinks of hairy thighs and stubble, or a beard, maybe, a beard might be nice, thinks of the swell of his chest. His breath picks up, heat building low in his abdomen.

He abruptly feels a little creepy about it. 

“Jesus,” he whispers into the quiet room, accompanied only by the low murmur of the television.

He hasn’t even messaged the guy back. Is he really so desperate that a stranger with a vaguely attractive torso expressing some form of interest in him can fuel an entire orgasm?

Probably, he concedes and reaches blindly for his phone on the coffee table. The screen is too bright in the low light of the living room and he squints as he struggles to adjust it to a less blinding level. With sweaty palms, he opens Grindr and goes onto the chat with **Dick_Toze**.

The little, smug message still sits there, unchanged. _You a wall street bro?_

Eddie types out ‘ _Sort of. You into that?_ ’ and questions his sanity. Does he need this? Can’t he just go to one of the many gay bars he has listed in his spreadsheet and pick up some guy who actually has a face? Bev knows men! Bev even knows gay men other than him! She has offered to set him up more than once over the past year, trying to bring him around to the idea of a blind date. 

But Eddie doesn’t want a blind date. Eddie doesn’t want _romance._ Eddie wants to have sex with some guy and never see him again, and then maybe have sex with a different guy and never see him again, either. There was a time for romance in his life and he blew it by marrying a woman, despite every fibre of his being straining against the wrongness of it.

He hits send.

Then promptly shoves his phone into the tight space between sofa cushions, squeezes his eyes shut and breathes deeply — in and out, in and out. Calming, but not calming enough.

His chest coils tight with anxiety and he allows himself to spiral as he counts down from ten. Four, three, two, one, and he gets up from the couch. His erection has flagged counterproductively, and the leftover half of his joint calls to him from its ashtray bed on the kitchen windowsill. He pulls his sweatpants back up.

He drags his feet on the way, socks on red oak floor, and hoists himself up on the kitchen counter by the sink so he can lean out of the window. He holds the joint between his lips and strikes a match, courtesy of Bev incessantly bugging him about disposable lighters being bad for the environment, and the first toke burns down his throat.

Below his window the world is wrapped in an orange glow from rows of street lamps lining the sidewalk. An old man in a ratty hoodie walks his dog, a huge beast of an animal that stops to growl at a fire hydrant, and further down a group of teenagers stand huddled together on the steps outside of one of the brownstones. The sound of their laughter drifts up through his window and settles deep in his stomach.

Over the past seventeen years, Eddie has cycled through every stage of emotion you can experience living in New York. When he first followed Bev here he was wide-eyed and overwhelmed, jumping at the screech of the subway tracks and every blaring of a horn. Back then he lived with her in the cramped, noisy apartment that was too small for six people, and all of their roommates were varying levels of unpleasant and loud, and worse yet were they people they invited over.

He nearly gave up, then. Every night his mother begged him to come home and every night he stared at the damp-mottled ceiling above, listened to the raucous voices and thump-thump of the bass coming from upstairs, downstairs, all around him, and in those first few weeks he packed and unpacked his bags countless times. He even made it as far as the Amtrak to Boston, once, but he got off at Stamford, waited an hour for the train back to New York and hated himself immensely.

It got better eventually. Bev made friends with a woman named Summer who had filthy-rich parents and owned a townhouse overlooking Prospect Park. Although Summer barely tolerated Eddie, when Bev asked sweetly about the empty rooms on the top floor of her house, she had twirled her dark hair with a wistful sigh and said, "Oh, Beverly, I guess it would be nice not to be so alone."

They moved into the brownstone in the tentative spring months of 2001. Just months later Eddie started his job at _Percival & Schmidt _ and Bev landed her first deal with a major label. The year that the US invaded Afghanistan was the year that Eddie really arrived in New York, one of the best years of his life, with a blazing summer and a feeling of freedom so intense he found himself cutting short calls with his mother despite the guilt, smoking packs and packs of cigarettes, and letting Bev strong-arm him into buying a leather jacket. 

On December 31st that year, with just minutes until midnight, he was kissed like he had never been kissed before, pressed up against the fridge in the kitchen of his house. Trevor, he was called, or maybe Travis, and Eddie felt the ghost of his beard against his chin for days and days. Eddie loved New York, then. 

Fifteen months later his mother faked a heart attack and Eddie used all of his holiday allowance for the year to come back to her. He left behind his cigarettes and would never pick them up again. In October of 2003 he met Myra at the stiflingly boring birthday do of a company VP and he fell into _something_ with her, not love, not friendship, but familiarity. It was easier to give in than it would have been to fight it. 

He often thinks that if he hadn't gone home to his mother that year, he would have fought. Bev says it's not healthy to think that way, tells him to accept that he is where he is meant to be and to look to the future instead of the past. Eddie really needs to start paying her for this shit.

New York lost its magic somewhere in between his first date with Myra and his wedding day. He woke up one morning to find that the skyscrapers no longer looked like the promise of a bright future but instead lined the horizon like bars across windows. Suddenly, he could once again hear the screech of wheels against subway tracks that had long since faded into the background, and he found the noise unbearable. 

He began to notice the ugly parts of the city, the dirt and grime and pollution, the piss in alleyways and drunk people vomiting on the street outside Myra's apartment — which was meant to be his apartment, too, but only ever felt like hers. He wasn't scared of the city then, but angry — at the noise and the people and the quality of air, at the rat-infested restaurants and the fucking tourists. But anger wasn't sustainable, and after a while it morphed into a miserable sort of resignation that clung to him like wet clothes. 

It wasn't until that first night in Bev's guest bedroom, the walls of it lined with suitcases and boxes, that he found himself peering out of the window with something akin to fondness for the first time in a decade.

Now he feels content here. He sees New York for what it is — a city, a place, nothing more. His home, yes, but anywhere could be given enough time and the right people. He has stopped ascribing humanity to this endless cluster of buildings and streets and greenery, has stopped looking for meaning in the concrete slabs of pavements. Here is where Bev is, and his work, and the bodega he favours, here is where he knows the flow of traffic and the lines of the subway system — here is where he lives.

His phone buzzes once, twice, three times, a sound muffled by the sofa cushions. He barely hears it but a part of him had been listening out for it, though he would never admit that out loud.

With one last look at the street down below he stubs out his joint and hops off the kitchen counter. To psyche himself up he first goes to the bathroom and washes his hands thoroughly, as though **Dick_Toze** is going to somehow smell tobacco on his fingers through the fucking screen and what, judge him for it? Dude called him a wall street bro on Grindr, there's no way he doesn't smoke weed. Probably considers himself a radical leftist too, for going to an anti-war protest once in 2006.

Back in the living room, he fishes his phone out of the gap he shoved it into and unlocks it. Sure enough, Grindr alerts him to three (3) new messages. He swipes down and taps the notification, his heart thump-thumping in his chest like it wants to escape — he can't blame it.

 **Dick_Toze [12:07am]** **  
** _lol that depends_

 **Dick_Toze [12:07am]** **  
** _are u keeping the tie on while we fuck?_

 **Dick_Toze [12:08am]** **  
** _because then i could be [eggplant emoji] [winky face emoji]_

Eddie groans and scrubs a hand across his face. He really can't believe he is about to sext a man who uses the eggplant emoji. Furious with himself but unfortunately a little horny, he types out a reply.

 **EK [12:12am]** **  
** _It's a choking hazard._

What the fuck? Is he trying to risk analyse this guy or fuck him?

 **EK [12:13am]** **  
** _But I guess that's the point. So yeah, sure._

He goes on **Dick_Toze** 's profile again, just to remind himself why he's doing this. The next message comes in while he's idly palming his dick through his sweatpants and looking at the single picture of this guy's chest.

 **Dick_Toze [12:14am]** **  
** _ohhh, didn't know u had it in u_

 **EK [12:14am]** **  
** _What the fuck? You don't know me._

 **Dick_Toze [12:15am]** **  
** _just making reasonable assumptions based on ur profile_

 **Dick_Toze [12:15]** **  
** _so what are u up to on this fine night?_

Eddie tries to come up with an interesting answer but there is really no way to turn being somewhat high and sitting on your couch into an exhilarating story.

 **EK [12:16am]** **  
** _Just watching TV. What about you?_

 **Dick_Toze [12:17am]** **  
** _chilling in bed. whatcha wearing?_

 **EK [12:18am]** **  
** _Wow, impressive moves._

 **Dick_Toze [12:18am]** **  
** _dude, it's fucking grindr. what kinda moves are u expecting???_

 **EK [12:19am]** **  
** _Fair point. Sweatpants and a t-shirt. You?_

 **Dick_Toze [12:19am]** **  
** _ah, the ultimate 'i'm home alone' outfit lol_

 **Dick_Toze [12:19am]** **  
** _just in my underwear ;)_

 **EK [12:22am]** **  
** _Are you not freezing? It's like 35 degrees._

Eddie shifts to lie down on the couch, his phone in one hand. He finds himself, once again, thumbing over to the dude's profile. It makes him feel a little pathetic, but no one needs to know that he is at a point in his life where a stranger's broad shoulders and hairy chest is apparently enough to get him going.

 **Dick_Toze [12:22am]** **  
** _believe it or not, i have a radiator. several radiators, actually!_

Eddie drops his phone on his chest and takes a few deep breaths. Why the fuck is he so bad at this? He knows how to sext, in theory. It's not exactly rocket science. But something about this night, this guy, the weed he smoked fifteen minutes ago, is turning him into a robot.

 **EK [12:23am]** **  
** _Sorry, I'm kind of high. You're hot._

Great. Amazing! That will show him.

 **Dick_Toze [12:23am]** **  
** _hahahahahah yeah? want a pic?_

 **EK [12:23am]** **  
** _Yes._

There's a short wait that Eddie spends rubbing the length of his hardening dick and trying to remember how to act like a real person. He feels warm all over, an edge of desperation to his breathing.

 **Dick_Toze [12:26am]** **  
** _[y194u=yDc.jpg]_

It's a picture of the guy in bed, taken from the neck down. It's a strange angle but shows everything that needs to be shown, the chest that Eddie has already familiarised himself with, the curve of his stomach, dark hair disappearing into the waistband of his briefs and a broad hand cupping the enticing shape of his dick through the red fabric.

Eddie slides his hand into his sweatpants. 

**EK [12:27am]** **  
** _You're so hot._

He cringes at himself. Again with the robot antics.

 **EK [12:27am]** **  
** _Would love to get my mouth all over you._

Slightly better.

 **Dick_Toze [12:28am]** **  
** _yeah? where would u start?_

 **EK [12:28am]** **  
** _Your neck, then your chest. You've got a great chest._

It's a little awkward typing with one hand but he doesn't want to stop stroking himself either so he suffers through. He pushes his sweatpants down to his thighs and considers asking the guy if he wants a picture, but then decides that's overthinking it so he just goes ahead and sends one with little fanfare. It's not particularly artistic but it's a dick with his hand wrapped around it, so hopefully it will send the right message.

 **EK [12:29am]** **  
** _[sKxJ71Ydqg.jpg]_

 **Dick_Toze [12:30am]** **  
** _oh fuck, nice dick_

 **Dick_Toze [12:30am]** **  
** _i promise i don't say that to all the boys_

 **EK [12:31am]** **  
** _Oh, good, I was about to be so jealous._

 **Dick_Toze [12:31am]** **  
** _hmm, nice dick AND slightly mean? i'm about to bust a nut just from that_

Eddie stares at the message and dedicates a few seconds to regretting his life choices, then sighs and accepts his fate.

 **EK [12:32am]** **  
** _I'm choosing to ignore that. Are you touching yourself?_

 **Dick_Toze [12:32am]** **  
** _yeah, hold on_

 **Dick_Toze [12:33am]** **  
** _[wH2hJXp.jgp]_

The picture is not much different from the one he had sent, a pretty standard dick pic in poor lighting. The guy’s hand is wrapped around the base of his cock, and the part of the picture that Eddie gets hung up on is the dusting of hair along his knuckles, the thick shape of his fingers. 

He screws his eyes shut and jerks himself off with quick movements. It’s not going to take him long to come and he considers just letting go and making quick work of it, but he reminds himself that **Dick_Toze** is probably expecting some sort of answer so he types another one-handed text. He tries several versions and deletes each one until settling on: 

**EK [12:34am]** **  
** _Want to get my mouth on your dick._

It feels incredibly trite and he worries the guy will be able to tell just from that text that Eddie has never touched anyone’s dick, let alone gotten his mouth on one. But he needn’t worry. 

**Dick_Toze [12:34am]** **  
** _yeah? bet u would be good at it, swallowing my cock_

 **Dick_Toze [12:34am]** **  
** _would u let me cum in your mouth?_

 **EK [12:35am]** **  
** _If you want._

 **Dick_Toze [12:35am]** **  
** _Haha u don’t sound too enthusiastic_

 **EK [12:35am]** **  
** _No, I am._

 **EK [12:35am]** **  
** _Enthusiastic._

 **Dick_Toze [12:36am]** **  
** _shit then yeah, i want. would love to mess u up in ur fancy suit_

 **EK [12:36am]** **  
** _You’re really into this whole Wall Street thing, huh?_

 **Dick_Toze [12:37am]** **  
** _u bet ;) I just want u to bend me over the desk in ur fancy office and fuck me_

Eddie is close, closer than he thought he would be after maybe three minutes of jerking off, but that thought makes him pause. That’s _terrible_ , unprofessional, he would get fired if anyone even so much as suspected, there is no way he would get away with _fucking some guy in his office._ There isn’t even a lock on his door. 

He considers telling Richie as much. But some annoying part of him that sounds a little like Bev says, _it’s a fantasy, you absolute moron. You don’t actually have to fuck him in your office._ He sighs. 

**EK [12:38am]** **  
** _Maybe you should be wearing my tie so I could hold onto it while I fuck you._

 **Dick_Toze [12:38am]** **  
** _holy SHIT warn a guy!_

 **Dick_Toze [12:38am]** **  
** _yes pls i’d be so good for u_

 **EK [12:38am]** **  
** _Bet you’re loud, too. You’ll have to cover your mouth so no one hears._

 **Dick_Toze [12:39am]** **  
** _u’ll just have to gag me, baby. only way to keep me quiet while i’m bouncing on ur cock_

Eddie comes with a gasp, spilling over his fist. He drops his phone on the coffee table and takes a minute to compose himself while he looks up at the ceiling, panting heavily. Having come on any part of your body always goes from kind of hot to absolutely disgusting very quickly so he wants nothing more than to rinse himself off in the shower and then go the fuck to bed, but he feels like he owes this guy an orgasm. 

**EK [12:41am]** **  
** _Sorry, I ‘busted a nut’. Need me to keep talking?_

 **Dick_Toze [12:41am]** **  
** _Hahahahaha nah i came when u said that shit about the tie. that was hot [eggplant emoji] [sweat droplets emoji]_

 **EK [12:41am]** **  
** _Alright. I’m going to shower._

 **Dick_Toze [12:42am]** **  
** _goodnight hot stuff_

"Bev, he won't stop texting me."

Eddie stretches his legs out underneath his desk and glances up to check that his office door is definitely shut.

On the other end of the line Bev asks, "Is that a bad thing?"

"I guess not?" He crosses his ankles. "It's mainly sexting."

She laughs. "Again, is that a bad thing?"

"I think he wants to meet up," he tells her. "He keeps hinting at it."

"Kaspbrak, don't make me ask the same question again."

Eddie lets his head drop against the backrest of his ergonomic office chair and stares up at the ceiling.

"It's not a bad thing," he sighs. And then, a little quieter, "I need to get laid."

"Mhm, you need to finally make that toothbrush worth it."

"Stop going on about the fucking toothbrush, Bev," he bristles. "But anyways, maybe I'll bite next time he hints at it."

"I think you should. What's the worst that could happen?" She pauses, just long enough for him to take a deep breath in preparation, and then she says, "Actually, don't answer that, Mr. Risk Analyst."

He snaps his mouth shut.

Bev says, "Just go for it. Live a little! You think he's hot and you guys have already bumped digital uglies, what more could you want?"

"Please never call it that again," Eddie groans. He leans forward to pick at the stir fry on his desk, once again uninspiring but a little better than the zoodles from the other day — a 6/10 on his spreadsheet.

"I'm just saying. You haven't shut up about wanting to fuck a stranger since you left Myra. He's a stranger who is down to fuck. What are you twiddling your thumbs for?"

Eddie sighs. He chews on a bit of soggy bell pepper and considers it.

Finally he says, "I just worry it'll be bad."

Bev laughs. "Sex with strangers often is."

"Oh, great! That's just what I wanted to hear!"

"Shut it, baby, I'm not here to tell you what you want to hear," she scoffs. "But what I mean is: That's why it's called a one night stand. One night, and then you get the hell out of there! You never have to speak to him again. The stakes could not possibly be any lower."

"Fine," he says and stabs a piece of tofu with his fork. "I guess I'll message him."

It takes him another two days to get around to it. He's not _avoiding_ it per se, he is just— Okay, he's avoiding it. Bev messages him several times to ask if he has a hot date set up yet and every time he responds with a thumbs up just because he knows there is nothing she hates more than a thumbs up text.

It's Thursday night and he has just had a very satisfying orgasm courtesy of Richie's sexting. He is lying spread-eagled on his bed, phone still in one hand and come drying on his stomach, and he tries to think of a way to breach the subject while he is still blissed out and mellow. They never text much afterwards and he really doesn't want it to be weird, but after a week of daily sexting he thinks that they're probably at a point where it's socially acceptable to ask. Right? Right.

 **EK [11:26pm]** **  
** _Do you have any plans this weekend?_

 **Dick_Toze [11:26pm]** **  
** _nah. u?_

 **EK [11:27pm]** **  
** _Not yet. Want to meet up?_

Like a teenager texting his crush he immediately throws his phone down the length of the bed. It comes dangerously close to bouncing off the mattress and onto the floor but he manages to stop it with his foot. He takes a minute to breathe, then he flees to the bathroom.

When he comes back after having cleaned himself up and brushed his teeth, he has three (3) new messages from **Dick_Toze**.

He briefly considers ignoring them until the morning, he could probably get away with pretending he fell asleep, but he isn't a fucking coward. Or at least, he isn't that much of a coward. It's just a casual hook-up. _The stakes could not possibly be any lower._

He opens the app.

 **Dick_Toze [11:31pm]** **  
** _oh yeah sure!!!!!!!!!_

 **Dick_Toze [11:34pm]** **  
** _lol was that a bit too eager? lol_

 **Dick_Toze [11:35pm]** **  
** _lemme try again: yeah, that'd be cool. i'm free whenever_

Eddie grins, feeling strangely charmed.

 **EK [11:38pm]** **  
** _Tomorrow?_

He doesn't have to wait long for a reply.

 **Dick_Toze [11:38pm]** **  
** _works for me!! [eggplant emoji] [tongue emoji]_

 **EK [11:39pm]** **  
** _Jesus Christ._

By the time he leaves work on Friday he has pretty much decided to cancel. He woke up that morning with a tight chest and his stomach in knots, and by lunch time he was bouncing off the walls and telling Bev that there is no point, he is too inexperienced, it would be terrible and then Richie would somehow contact every single gay guy in New York City and tell them to steer clear of Eddie Kaspbrak, who is a terrible fuck and can’t even get a good rhythm on a hand job, and he would have to move back to Portland and live in his dead mother's house.

Despite Bev's best efforts to talk him out of it, he spends his subway ride home drafting increasingly neurotic-sounding cancellation texts in his notes app. There's no point — he just simply isn't made for romance, or sex, or even friendship. And much as he doesn't doubt Bev's love for him is genuine, he sees her as a statistical anomaly rather than proof of his ability to form meaningful relationships.

The first thing he does when he gets home is roll a joint at his kitchen table. He opens a window so the apartment doesn't stink of weed for hours — unlike Bev and most of her friends, he finds the smell deeply unpleasant. It won't stop him from smoking but it does mean he spends more time with his windows open than not, even on a cold January day.

They're supposed to meet at 10pm in Hell's Kitchen, at a bar that Richie says is not too far from his apartment. The implications of that make him nervous all over again, despite the high dulling his anxiety, and he rubs his palms along the pilling fabric of his sweatpants. He considers calling Bev but he already spent half an hour talking to her on his lunch break and has sent her an essay's worth of texts over the course of the day. She claims to not get sick of him but sometimes he thinks that she must.

He eats dinner at seven o'clock like he does every day. Another dull meal, quinoa salad with stuffed red peppers that are soggy and burnt around the edges — a solid 6/10 for the salad, 4/10 for the peppers but he thinks that might be more his fault than that of the recipe. He sits on the couch until eight, then realises he only has half an hour to get ready if he is actually going, and he promptly goes into another panic spiral about it. 

This time he does call Bev.

"I think I'm going to cancel," he tells her as soon as she picks up.

"Hello to you too, my darling, long time no speak! Yes, I'm fine, thank you for asking. My day was okay, how was yours?"

"We were on the phone like seven hours ago," he grumbles. "I know how you are."

She says, "It's called having manners."

He snorts. "Yeah, right. You're big on those. Like New Years Eve last year when—"

"Aaaaaanyways," she says loudly, cutting him off. "You're thinking of pussying out, huh?"

Eddie paces the length of his living room. "Fuck off, don't call it that."

"Not sure what else to call it," she says lightly. "Eddie, you don't have to go home with him. It won't hurt to at least meet him, and if he gives you weird vibes or you aren't feeling it you can just leave."

"It's very clearly not a date," he snaps. "We've not talked about anything but sex. I don't even know his job, or even like— hobbies! All I know about him is what his dick looks like, that he lives somewhere in Manhattan and that he doesn't have roommates."

Bev makes a dismissive noise. "So what? You can still leave. Did you sign a fucking contract or what?"

Eddie really hates it when she's right. Unfortunately for him, she tends to be right more often than not, even when he firmly believes that it should be _him_ who is right, if the universe was fair and just. After something like twenty-seven years of friendship she knows him too well and she refuses to let him be right about anything, even when his ego desperately needs it.

"No," he concedes as though it wasn't a rhetorical question. "But I don't want to let him down."

"He is a complete stranger," Bev says impatiently. "You don't owe him shit."

Eddie sighs and goes into his bedroom. "Alright," he says. "But you have to help me pick an outfit."

"Oh, honey, there’s nothing I’d rather do."

He gets an Uber, in the end. The idea of losing his nerve on the subway surrounded by dozens of people sounds a lot less appealing than being in the back of a car and only having the driver to worry about. He is dressed in his Beverly Marsh approved outfit — slim cut jeans, a green sweater from her 2017 winter collection, and his thickest parka, the one with the fur hood because it's fucking freezing outside and he doesn't want to regret going with something more fashionable later. It's January, there's no shame in layering up.

He goes through work emails on his phone for the duration of the half hour ride there. It's mind-numbing enough to calm him down, productive enough to not feel completely pointless. Halfway there he gets a Grindr notification and he nearly drops his phone in his hurry to check it. He isn't sure what he's hoping for — a cancellation, maybe? He swipes away a weather warning push notification and opens the app.

 **Dick_Toze [9:38pm]  
** _gonna send u a pic of my outfit so u recognise me lol_

 **Dick_Toze [9:38pm]  
** _[hd8J=xyee.jpg]_

It's a mirror selfie, once again cut off just below the neck. He's wearing dark jeans, a garish button down shirt with flamingos on a blue background, and a leather jacket over it. Definitely not enough layers for this kind of weather.

 **EK [9:40pm]  
** _You realise I'm going to know what your face looks like in 20 minutes, right?_

 **Dick_Toze [9:41pm]  
** _yeah lol i'm shy_

 **Dick_Toze [9:41pm]  
** _also like evidence u know?_

 **EK [9:42pm]  
** _Sure._

Eddie looks at the picture again. He should hate it, really. The outfit is terrible, seriously, what is up with that shirt, but the leather jacket is doing a lot for his shoulders and Eddie wants to get his hands on him more than he has let himself want something in a long time.

He makes it to the bar with five minutes to spare. He tips the driver in the app while he stands on the curb, gives him a five star rating for not making conversation beyond a mumbled 'hello', and then makes his way towards the neon sign down the street.

Outside, he stops and wipes his sweaty palms on his jeans.

There's still time to back out, he tells himself. Sure, it would be an asshole move but Eddie has never claimed to be anything but, and Richie won't struggle to find a different guy to fuck, perhaps even that night. Really, with those shoulders and that dick? He probably has countless guys on speed dial. 

But Eddie wants to be one of them. Hasn't he earned this? After decades of denying himself, of trying to please everyone around him, and even now the ghost of his mother, doesn't he deserve to fuck — or to get fucked by — a hot guy?

He squares his shoulders, his jaw, squares anything he can possibly square, and goes inside.

The place is small, almost claustrophobic, with tables crammed into every conceivable empty space, but it's not as busy as he expected on a Friday night. He scans the room for a tall guy in a flamingo shirt and leather jacket, and he spots him standing at the bar with a beer in one hand and his phone in the other.

Eddie stares at him for a long moment, takes in the wave of his dark hair, the glasses (surprising, but only for a second), the stubble on his jaw. That sure is a man! A real one! In the flesh! 

He swallows dryly.

The closer Eddie gets to the edge of the bar the more familiar this guy looks. He can't quite place him, but wonders if he's seen him at some sort of work event before, or maybe he just has one of those faces — the kind you can't help but know instinctively.

He sidles up to him and tries not to be weird about it. His heart jumps in his throat.

"Richie?"

The guy yelps and nearly drops his phone.

"Jesus," he says and then laughs like he can't help himself. He looks him up and down, a textbook once-over that makes Eddie feel hot under his skin. "Shit, hey! Eddie?"

"Uh, hello," Eddie says and sounds incredibly stilted, even to his own ears. Up close, he still can't place Richie at all though he looks just as familiar as he did from a distance.

He clears his throat, undoes the zip on his parka and puts his elbow on the bar, hoping that it will make him look like he knows what he's doing. He tries to channel the energy of a man who has met plenty of strangers at bars.

Richie grins at him widely, his eyes squinting behind his thick glasses, and he lifts up his beer bottle. "What's your poison?" he asks, like they're in a fucking movie. Do people say that shit in real life?

Eddie peers at the selection of spirits at the back of the bar, then at the beer bottles lined up inside the fridges. He really doesn't want to be too adventurous with it, the last thing he needs right now is heartburn, but he feels a childish urge to impress Richie.

He cycles through a few options in his head, drinks that cool people might order at a bar, anything that will say to Richie, _I've done this before, you do not scare me, I'm not fucking scared of you!_

"Bloody Mary," he blurts, after perhaps a second too long. He falters.

 _What the fuck?_ He hates tomato juice, he hates tabasco, he hates celery. Come to think of it, Worcestershire sauce isn't even fucking vegetarian.

"Huh, really?" Richie says, still grinning, and he raises a hand to get the bartender's attention.

Eddie feels like a fucking idiot when he says, "No, uh, I meant beer. Can I get— Just whatever you're having." 

So much for showing Richie this is familiar territory for him. At this rate the guy's going to think he's never set foot into a bar before, or better yet, that he's never set foot outside of his _apartment._

"Two very different drinks!" Richie laughs and leans against the bar, all casual nonchalance. Like he actually has done this plenty of times. Like he feels at home here. "I respect that. You contain multitudes."

Eddie wants to go home.

It doesn't get much better, at least not for Eddie. He hoped that he would remember how to behave like a human being at some point, going so far as to google 'how to act on a pre-hookup hangout' under the table when Richie goes to get himself another beer. The results aren't particularly helpful.

Richie for one seems to be having an okay time, cracking jokes and laughing at them himself regardless of whether they're funny or not. He talks enough for the two of them, says he does stand-up (that tracks), that he lives nearby, tells him that he wanted to be a ventriloquist when he was a kid but he was terrible at it, and spends ten minutes talking about his best friend Stan who is an accountant but somehow the coolest person he's ever met. Eddie wonders sardonically if maybe Richie would rather be going home with Stan tonight.

Eddie goes to the bathroom three times in an hour, and each time he considers escaping through the tiny window in the second cubicle, texts Bev to tell her Richie hasn't killed him yet but he might die of mortification, and then washes his hands for longer than strictly necessary. 

Perhaps the worst part of the night is that he still wants to fuck this guy. Desperately so.

When he comes back from the bathroom for the third time, Richie almost looks surprised to see him. He is in the middle of peeling off the label on his beer bottle, bits of it already scattered across the table in wet clumps, and when Eddie sits down across from him he says, "I was sure you actually left this time," and then he laughs louder than necessary, high-pitched in a way that feels almost familiar by now.

For the first time in the hour they've been there, Eddie thinks that Richie might be nervous, too.

He takes a swig of his beer, that last, warm sip that is more spit than beer, and then he sets the bottle down on the table with a loud clunk.

"So you don't live far from here?" he asks, emboldened by Richie's nerves. 

Richie stares at him with wide eyes and his voice cracks when he says, "Just a few blocks away."

And Eddie feels like he has some semblance of an upper hand for the first time since walking into this place.

He gestures towards the door. "It's getting kind of late." 

Richie nods wordlessly and his tongue flicks out to wet his lips, a flash of pink. 

Eddie takes his coat off the back of his chair, collects both their empty bottles to drop them off at the bar, and he gets up. Richie follows suit, uncharacteristically quiet. 

The walk is only about ten minutes but it's freezing cold so it feels longer. It’s snowing outside, tiny flakes swirling through the air. It should be peaceful, but Hell’s Kitchen is bursting with life around them, traffic and people and loud music drifting from bars and apartment blocks they pass. 

Somewhere on the corner between 50th and 52nd Street, Richie regains his voice and Eddie loses his confidence.

As Richie babbles about some movie he watched last week, something about The Rock climbing a skyscraper, maybe, Eddie sinks deeper into the safety of his coat and tries not to get overwhelmed. For all his posturing over text, he actually doesn't know what the fuck he's doing when it comes to sex. Myra was different, not just because she was a woman but because she didn't give a shit about sex. She considered it to be a once a month, fifteen minute affair in the darkness of their bedroom. They didn't even have sex on their wedding night because Myra had a fight with her sister about the buffet and cried herself to sleep while he sat in the hotel lobby and read _The Caves of Steel_.

Back then Eddie thought he didn't care about sex, either. It felt more like an obligation than anything else, not an obligation to Myra but an obligation to the gods of holy matrimony, and he imagines Myra felt the same. It was only in the privacy of the shower, or the rare times that he was home and his wife wasn't, that he let himself imagine something else — hairy chests, large hands, the feeling of stubble rough on his jaw, his neck, his thighs.

It's been a long eighteen months of allowing himself to figure out what he wants, and how, and who with. It took him a year to even get around to kissing another man, some guy named Mark who Bev set him up with, who kissed with too much tongue and tasted of the whiskey he had guzzled at dinner. Much to his embarrassment, Mark had been the one to ghost him even though Eddie was already gearing up to let him down gently. His ego still hasn't fully recovered.

"This is me," Richie says and gestures at the dark green door of an apartment block, red-bricked and six floors high, with vines snaking up the front alongside a black iron fire escape.

They stop just outside. Eddie weighs his options, considers making up an excuse for why he absolutely has to leave right this second, but then Richie puts a hand on the small of his back and it’s like he's been tased. He could swear that he can feel the warmth of his palm through the thick material of his coat.

"Alright," he says, more to himself than to Richie, and he steps up to the door.

Richie's apartment is on the fifth floor and the elevator looks like it might fall apart if it has to carry the weight of two people so by the time they make it to the front door Eddie is a little winded and Richie is panting like he's just run a marathon.

Eddie asks, "You don't exercise much?"

Richie throws him an incredulous look over his shoulder as he unlocks the door and struggles against the weight of it, its un-oiled hinges squeaking with every inch.

"Nah, but people don't usually point it out."

“Daily exercise prevents heart disease, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes and arthritis,” Eddie tells him. 

"Thanks, WebMD,” Richie laughs and holds the door open for him. “So are you some sort of gym freak?"

Eddie snorts, steps inside and toes off his shoes, then bends down to place them neatly on the shoe rack. 

"I run, mainly," he says. Shrugs off his coat and hangs it on a hook on the wall. He tugs at the hem of his sweater nervously, smoothing out some of the wrinkles. "Not a huge fan of the gym. They have signs up saying that you have to disinfect equipment after using it but no one actually fucking does it, I'm always cleaning up after people. It's so gross, and most gyms aren't very well ventilated either so..."

He trails off and scowls when he catches sight of Richie's wide smile.

"Cute," Richie says. "A real germaphobe. What the hell are you doing in New York, man?"

"Shut the fuck up," Eddie snaps. And then, as a peace offering: "My hand sanitiser bill is through the roof."

Richie’s laugh seems even louder now in the quiet space of his apartment.

They end up on the yellow corner sofa in the living room, sitting at an appropriate distance away from each other. The apartment is nice, if a little cluttered. The floors are a warm teak wood and there are plants dotted along the windowsills and shelves, Eddie recognises the succulents and the parlor palm, thinks that the glossy-leaved plant next to the flat screen TV might be a Japanese aralia.

The light from the floor lamp in the corner bathes the room in a warm orange. The walls are covered in movie posters and other random bits, like vinyl sleeves, a yellow street sign saying '60TH ST', a watercolour painting of a seaside town, the framed cover of a Bill Denbrough book. Richie has a record player on a side table next to the sofa and an impressive collection of records on a shelf across the room.

If Eddie weren't so tightly wound, he might feel at home here.

Richie brings him a beer from the fridge even though Eddie doesn't really want one and for a moment the silence is crushingly awkward.

Then Richie says, "So, uh, you do this a lot?"

Eddie takes a sip from the can to buy himself some time. Lying might lead to false expectations, the truth might lead to Richie thinking he's a loser.

He hedges his bets and says, "Not really. You?"

There seems to be some joke there that only Richie is in on. As he laughs, Eddie watches him intently, if a little bewildered. He has a nice jaw, the strong shape of it enticing. His teeth are a little crooked and he has an overbite which might be unattractive on anyone else but looks kind of cute on him.

 _Jesus,_ he thinks. He doesn't even like the guy that much, actually finds him kind of annoying with how much he talks and how little he asks, like no one has ever taught him how to have a conversation. But he remembers the nervous shake of Richie's fingers as he peeled off bits of the label on his bottle, the startled relief that flashed across his face when Eddie came back from the bathroom, and he thinks that maybe the Richie he is seeing tonight is as much a nervous version of himself as Eddie is.

"No, I don't," Richie finally says and raises his bottle at him in a toast. "Absolutely fucking not. Sorry if I gave off the impression that I do."

Eddie grins and clinks his bottle against Richie's. "My fault for making assumptions."

He feels more at ease now than he had at the bar, some of his nervous energy draining into the soft cushions of Richie's couch, but he is still nowhere near as relaxed as he would like to be. His head is swimming with questions and no answers, like what he should do if Richie kisses him, or if he should make the first move himself, and why is this so weird when they have spent the past week jerking off to pictures of each other?

Richie sets his beer down on the coffee table with a loud noise that cuts through the mellow silence of the room. He says, "I'm gonna put on some music," and gets up. 

"You got a preference?" he asks Eddie, looking over his shoulder as he thumbs through his records. 

Eddie shrugs and says, "Nothing shit."

"I don't own any shit records."

"You literally have a Bruno Mars album framed on your wall," Eddie says dryly.

Richie takes a vinyl out of its sleeve, places it on the record player, and says "I repeat: I don't own any shit records."

Eddie snorts.

Richie lowers the tonearm and the player comes to life with a crackling noise. The opening drums of Fleetwood Mac's _Dreams_ float through the room. Richie turns around and stretches out his arms as if to say, _Ta-da!_

"Hm," says Eddie. "Better than Bruno Mars."

"Better than— better than fucking Bruno Mars?" Richie guffaws. "I guess that's one way to describe the spiritual journey that is listening to Fleetwood Mac _._ "

"It's a factually correct statement."

Richie flops back down on the couch, his long legs stretched out in front of him, and Eddie wants badly to put his hand on his thigh, feel the shape of it through the denim of his jeans. He takes a sip of his beer. Condensation drips down his fingers where he holds it, still cold from the fridge, and the air around him feels thick. It chokes him, a palpable tension.

"I guess," Richie huffs. "If you want to be pedantic."

 _Oh, thunder only happens when it's raining  
_ _Players only love you when they're playing_

Eddie bobs his head in time with the music, a small movement. He stares down at his thumb, the side of it glistening wet, and his body is tense like he is poised for a fight.

 _Say women they will come and they will go  
_ _When the rain washes you clean, you'll know, you'll know_

"You ever done any acting, like in a fucking yoghurt advert or something?" Eddie asks and flicks his gaze over to Richie. It might be the booze talking, but he thinks that the garish flamingo shirt actually suits him quite a lot, the blue of it complementing his skin tone and his eyes.

Richie stares at him. "Huh?" he says intelligently.

"You look familiar but I have no idea why."

"Uh, I— I do stand-up."

Eddie frowns. "I've never been to a stand-up show."

Richie clears his throat. "Do you have Netflix?"

"Uh, yes. Who the hell doesn't have Netflix these days?"

"Might have seen me around, then."

"On _Netflix_?! What— What the fuck," Eddie sputters.

"I do stand-up," Richie repeats. "I did a Netflix special last year. _'Trashmouth Tozier: My Girlfriend’s Mom is Hotter Than Her’_?"

Eddie gapes at him, completely blindsided. "Jesus Christ, you're famous,” he says. “And that’s such a shit title.” 

Richie scratches the back of his head sheepishly. "Don't, uh, please don't watch it. Ever."

Eddie raises his eyebrows. "Why? Does it suck? Is it really offensive?"

"I don't write my own material," Richie tells him, his nose scrunched up in embarrassment. "My persona is very much 'schlubby straight guy who makes jokes about cheating on his hot girlfriend'."

"Fucking shit," Eddie groans. He's not just going to have sex with a famous comedian, he is going to have sex with a _bad famous comedian._ Provided they ever actually get to that part of the evening, that is. His life really can't get any worse.

"Sorry," Richie says and sounds like he means it. "Did I just ruin my chances? Did that kill your boner?"

Eddie takes a moment to lament the fact that not even Richie saying the words 'did that kill your boner' can actually kill his boner.

"No," he sighs. "Unfortunately not."

"Oh, man," Richie laughs and nudges Eddie's ankle with his foot. "So you just have bad taste?"

Eddie bristles. "Shut the fuck up, you're hot."

"That would be the bad taste." As Stevie Nicks croons that you don't know what it means to win, Richie drapes his arm across the back of the sofa like an invitation. "You wanna come here?"

If Eddie's heart jumps in his chest like his crush has just asked him to the prom then that's between him and God. He sets his beer down on the coffee table and tries not to seem too eager as he shifts closer to him until he is pressed up against Richie's side.

It's intimate, being so close to what is effectively a stranger. Eddie breathes through the tightness in his stomach and relaxes marginally into the touch.

Richie tilts his head to look at him and slides his arm around Eddie's shoulders. The weight of it should be comforting, instead it feels crushing. Energy thrums underneath Eddie’s skin and his hands tremble in his lap, too warm now without the cool bottle to hold on to.

"Can I, uh," Richie starts, and it's so surprisingly polite of him that Eddie doesn't let him finish.

He surges forward but misjudges the momentum and doesn't give Richie enough warning, so it's an uncomfortable press of lips at first, too hard and unforgiving. Then Richie eases him back a fraction and cradles his neck with one warm, broad hand, and suddenly it's better, if not perfect.

Eddie didn't know it was possible to be bad at kissing until Whiskey Mark, having never bothered to examine his kissing technique with Myra because theirs were largely just pecks, and now he realises that he might just suck at it, inherently. He isn't sure what to do with his lips, his hands, wonders if it’s too soon for tongue. What is an acceptable amount of time before you go for some tongue? He considers excusing himself to the bathroom so he can google it.

His hands are still curled uselessly in his lap. This doesn’t feel instinctive at all, Eddie is stiff and ungainly, and Richie is doing all the heavy lifting. Determined to level the playing field and to convince Richie this isn't his first fucking kiss, he angles his body to get closer and reaches up to cup the side of Richie's face, his stubble rough against his palms.

Richie makes a quiet sound into the kiss, which must mean he is doing something right. Emboldened, he parts his lips, a question, and Richie answers it by flicking his tongue out to meet Eddie's. An urgent hunger flares up in the pit of his stomach. As Richie licks into his mouth, Eddie grips at his stupid flamingo shirt and undoes the first button he can find with slippery fingers.

Richie moves his arm from Eddie's shoulder to his waist and tries to pull him into some sort of position, but Eddie has no idea what position that might be so he fumbles, unsure of what direction he is meant to be moving in. He ends up kneeling by Richie's side and feeling out of his depth, while Richie keeps tugging at him like he's an oversized doll.

Eddie pulls back and snaps, "Stop fucking manhandling me and just tell me where to go." 

"Oh, uh," Richie stutters, his face flushed red. "In my lap?" He sounds uncertain.

"Right." Eddie climbs on top of him with all the grace of a baby elephant and Richie puts his arms around him again, one hand coming to rest on his ass, which is good progress. That, at least, is somewhere in the general vicinity of second base.

When they kiss again Eddie tries to pay close attention to his technique, considering the angle of his head and the way his tongue drags across Richie's lower lip, but the more he thinks about it the deeper into his head he goes. He can practically feel himself clam up, a whole-body reaction. His knees ache where they're bent on either side, his spine is stiff, and he finds himself acutely aware of the way his dick is pressed into Richie's stomach, which should feel good but instead just makes him self-conscious. 

Is it weird that he's hard? He can't figure out if Richie is, tries to wiggle his hips to find out but to no avail, so he has no idea if he is just being a horny, desperate bastard or if this is normal. They have only been kissing for something like five minutes, or the length of one and a half Fleetwood Mac songs. Is that too short a time to get a boner? What if Richie is just fully flaccid, what the fuck is he going to do then? He doesn't want to face the reality that he might be way more into this than Richie, enough so that he is rock hard from a few minutes of clumsy kissing.

In an effort to bring his attention back to the task at hand, Eddie tries to lick along Richie's upper lip at the exact time that Richie opens his mouth wider which means he ends up licking the front of his teeth. Richie makes a confused noise. Eddie's face burns with embarrassment but he powers through and course corrects, managing to actually get his lip this time.

He jolts in shock when Richie squeezes his ass, and it's not unpleasant, he just wasn't expecting it, but it clearly sends the wrong message.

Richie pulls back to say, "Oh, sorry, I—"

"No, it's fine, just— I wasn't—" Instead of completing whatever the fuck he was trying to say Eddie presses a strange, wet kiss to the corner of Richie's mouth, then bends down to hide his burning face in the crook of Richie's neck. 

He wonders if leaving hickeys is something you do to a casual hook-up. Too uncertain to commit to it, he instead noses along the line of his throat and pushes his shirt to the side so he can kiss his collarbone.

Richie hums above him and he sounds pleased, thank fucking god, he might not be a lost cause yet. His free hand not on Eddie's ass slides underneath his sweater, then underneath the shirt below the sweater, and then underneath the undershirt below that shirt.

"What the hell are you wearing so many layers for?" Richie asks, his laugh a hot gust against the crown of Eddie's hair.

"It's fucking January," Eddie bristles and when he pulls back so he can glower at him, he accidentally knocks Richie's jaw with his head.

"Ow, shit," Richie hisses and his face is scrunched up in pain.

"Fuck, sorry." Eddie's hand flits uselessly along his jaw, apologetic touches with his fingertips.

"'s fine." Richie sticks his tongue out at him. "Jus' bi' my thongue."

Eddie examines it for blood but there isn't any. He doesn’t know what he would have done if there was — probably would have left via the fire escape. 

"Sorry," he says again. He wants to crawl out of his fucking skin. He wants to go home, cursing the day he decided to download Grindr, cursing Bev for encouraging this, cursing the shape of the fucking closet he knows so intimately, the thing that brought him here now. A forty year old with the sexual competence of a middle schooler.

Richie grins at him dopily, his tongue back in his mouth where it belongs. "Do you wanna take this to the bedroom?"

Eddie stares at him. "What the shit," he says. "Really?!"

The expression on Richie's face falters. "Uh, I mean, we don't have to?"

"No, fuck, sure, I just," Eddie stammers. "I don't know. Never mind, let's go."

 _This is the gift horse they tell you not to look at too closely, you stupid idiot_ , he thinks as he follows Richie to the bedroom. For some reason this guy wants to have sex with him despite the fact that Eddie has no idea what he's doing and just nearly knocked him out. He has never believed in miracles but this might be enough to sway him.

Richie opens the door to the bedroom. It's a decent size, not quite spacious but not the kind of prison cell bedroom you might get in some New York City apartments. There are more plants here, a fern underneath the window, a few more succulents dotted around, and it looks like someone tidied the room in a hurry — a single stray sock lies forgotten on the floor, there is a stack of books has clearly been shoved under the bed, the edges peeking out.

Richie makes a sweeping gesture. "This is where the magic happens."

"You really just say this kind of shit, huh?" Eddie crosses his arms. “'What’s your poison?' 'This is where the magic happens?' Like a wind-up toy.”

“What? Those are normal things to say!”

Eddie scoffs. “No, they’re not.”

“Jesus, you’re hard to please,” Richie laments and takes his wrist to pull him close.

"I'm really not," Eddie says though he knows it's a lie. He goes along with it until he is right up against him and then, with all the confidence he can muster, he puts his arms around Richie's waist.

Richie cradles the back of his head with one hand, and the way his fingernails scrape his scalp makes Eddie feel light-headed. He doesn't quite have to get on his tiptoes to kiss Richie but it's close, and that is just another thing for him to obsess about for the next few months when he looks back on this. The fact that Richie is taller is extremely sexy to him, though he would never admit it out loud. 

The kiss goes smoothly this time, except for when Richie bites Eddie's lower lip way too hard as if to get him back for the head-butt and Eddie pulls back to curse him out for it. They eventually make it to the bed and Eddie sheds some clothes along the way, so by the time the back of his knees hit the mattress and buckle underneath him he is only left with his jeans and sleeveless undershirt. 

He fumbles with the buckle of Richie's belt, the sound of clinking metal cutting through the relative silence in the room.

"Do you, uh," Eddie starts as he undoes the button of Richie's jeans, and he feels himself go red. He tries to remember what it said on Richie’s Grindr profile. "Do you have a preference?" 

“You mean top or bottom?" Richie asks, his brows knitted together.

He is still standing between Eddie's legs and looks down at him now, imposingly tall. Like this, Eddie is getting a great view of his stomach and chest, and since they're hopefully about to do a lot more than just this he feels brave enough to feel him up. He pushes Richie's shirt up so he can touch the hairy skin of his stomach, can run his palm upwards until he gets a handful of his chest.

"Yeah," he says, several beats too late.

Richie cards his fingers through Eddie's hair, which Eddie doesn't feel great about. He doesn't like his hair getting messy, actually spends a lot of time on making sure it stays neat, but he thinks that if he complains about that now Richie might genuinely pull the cord and kick him out.

"I'm fine either way," Richie tells him and bends down to press a kiss to Eddie’s cheekbone. It’s strangely intimate, could almost be affectionate if they were anything but strangers. “But I like getting fucked.” 

Eddie makes a strangled noise. His stomach is in knots and sweat prickles in his armpits and on the back of his neck for no fucking reason at all, but that was the answer he was hoping for, somewhere deep down. He has tried fingering himself before, even went so far as to order a toy that sits unused in a drawer in his bedroom, but the thought of Richie going anywhere near his asshole right now makes him want to flee the country and start a new life as a potato farmer in Novosibirsk. 

But he can do this. He has done research (watched porn), he has done a lot of soul searching (masturbated), he knows what he wants, or at least has a vague idea. And, he reminds himself once again, _the stakes could not be any lower._ There is no Yelp for sexual partners. If it goes terribly, he never has to see Richie again. If it goes well, he probably won’t see him again regardless. 

With a determined set of his jaw, he takes hold of Richie's waist and pulls him down. Richie goes willingly until he is kneeling above him, propped up on his forearms, and all Eddie can think about then is how broad he is, how solid, how it would feel to be hugged by him. 

_Fucking hell, Kaspbrak._ Are you ill? 

"Take off your shirt," he says, tugging Richie's collar. "Uh, please." 

"Aw, it’s cute that you’re trying to be polite about it," Richie laughs but he does as he was told. He bunches the shirt up and throws it into some dark corner of the room. 

"Hope you own an iron," Eddie says nonsensically, taken by the sight of Richie's bare chest. 

He has become intimately familiar with it over the past week, having looked at that picture on his Grindr profile more often that is probably socially acceptable, but somehow that hasn't prepared him for being up close and personal with it. Like a fucking freak, he puts both hands flat on Richie's chest and squeezes. 

"Uh," Richie says, looking down at him with wide eyes. "You having fun there?" 

Eddie flushes from the tips of his ears down to his belly. He drops his hands so they lie uselessly on the bed, unsure of how to proceed without embarrassing himself further, because if there is one thing he can't stand it's being embarrassed. 

He has imagined this, touching Richie all over, has said several times how badly he wanted to get his hands and mouth on him, felt feverish at the very idea, but faced with the reality it all seems so intimidating. 

Upon failing to come up with a plan of action, he props himself up on his elbows and goes back to kissing. He sort of knows what he is doing there, and it might buy him enough time to figure out what to do with his hands, his body, what to say — really, what can you say in bed without immediately sounding like a C-list porn star. 

Richie kisses him back enthusiastically and he seems to have more of an idea about what to do, one hand finding the hem of Eddie's shirt and pushing it up so he can run his palm along his abs. The touch momentarily distracts Eddie from his panicked spiralling, long enough so that he finds the courage to reach up and thread his fingers through Richie's hair like he has wanted to all night. It's soft, despite the fact it looks like he has never used conditioner in his life, and he gives it a gentle tug. 

Richie inhales sharply, nips at his lower lip, and Eddie feels that in the pit of his stomach. Thrumming with a frantic energy unfamiliar to him, Eddie bucks his hips upwards, against Richie's thigh, and he groans low in his throat when Richie gives back, grinds down against him just as eagerly. 

Maybe this won't be so bad, after all. The 'sex' section of his spreadsheet, filled with lists and commentary on things that he knows he likes, might want to try, definitely wants to try, or would sooner jump out of a moving car than try, all those needlessly thorough hours he spent thinking about this, picturing this, maybe they have all been worth it. 

And then Richie attempts to shift position and knees Eddie in the dick, _hard_ , and the moment is gone. It's fucking dead, only identifiable by its teeth, not appropriate for an open-casket funeral. 

Eddie tries to be dignified about his response, but unfortunately it's hard to be dignified while curling up into a fetal position and gasping, "Fucking shit asshole fuck," with Richie clearly trying not to laugh through his apology above him. 

"I'm gonna—" Eddie rolls out from underneath Richie and gets up. "I'm going to piss. Try not to pull a muscle laughing while I'm gone." 

"Aw, do you need to go and lick your wounds?" Richie coos, a shit-eating grin still plastered across his face.

Eddie flips him off and says, "Isn't that your job?" 

"Ooh, I will if you want me to, babe." Richie waggles his eyebrows. 

Eddie doesn't gratify that with a response.

The bathroom is easy enough to find, given that it's the only room aside from the kitchen that he hasn't been in yet. Like the rest of the apartment, it is a little cluttered and filled with plants. While he tries to will his erection down so he can pee, Eddie wonders how the hell someone as scattered as Richie keeps track of watering two dozen plants. Does he get someone in to do it for him? He _is_ famous after all.

_Oh Christ, he's famous._

He sits down on the edge of the bathtub and looks up Richie Tojer', then tries 'Richie Tosher', at which point Google helpfully suggests _did you mean 'Richie Tozier'?_

Hundreds of image results shows him that yes, he did mean Richie Tozier. It's strange to look at these pictures of him, varying from magazine headshots to paparazzi photos and spanning at least a decade. The Richie in these pictures looks nothing like the Richie next door. Or well, he does, of course he does, it's _him_ after all, but stamped across each photo is a clear vision of what the world believes him to be, some funnyman, some idea of a straight guy, like a grotesque distortion of the man he is. 

But he supposes that comes with being a celebrity. And in truth, that comes with existing in this world, celebrity or not. To be perceived by strangers, by colleagues, by friends, and to be judged by them. Eddie has always been conscious of the version of himself he presents to others, and knows that it is different from the unabridged truth of him. Eddie Kaspbrak, risk analyst, straight-laced, boring, and clinically humourless, a hard worker and not someone you want to be friends with. He feels comfortable in that illusion. It means no one can be disappointed by the reality, if they were ever to get close enough to see it. 

He finally manages to pee, then. Nothing gets a boner down quicker than a bit of grappling with the perception of the self. He washes his hands with rigour, a good minute and a half. Richie’s soap smells of cedar wood and coffee. Maybe he isn’t ready to have sex? The paint in the upper right corner by the window is peeling and he wants to fix it, why hasn’t Richie fixed it? Who just leaves paint to peel in their home? It will only get worse over time if nothing is done about it. It’s practically begging for damp. 

Eddie shouldn’t have sex with someone who doesn’t look after their space. It’s a bad sign, like an omen. 

He considers texting Bev. He considers climbing out of the window. He considers jerking himself off for a bit just to get to a point where he is horny enough that the reasonable part of his brain shuts off. 

In the end, he does none of those things. By the time he gets back to the bedroom, what must be at least ten minutes later, Richie is sitting on the edge of the mattress, still shirtless and with his belt buckle undone, and he is watching something on his phone, potentially _The Simpsons_ if Eddie isn’t getting his pop culture wires crossed completely. 

He looks up when Eddie comes in, pauses the video, and raises his eyebrows at him. 

“You good?” he asks. 

“Yes,” Eddie says tersely. 

“Did you have to nurse Little Eddie back to health?” 

“Don’t fucking call my penis ‘Little Eddie’, you cretin,” Eddie snaps and crosses the room in quick strides. In a fit of bravery, he pulls off his undershirt when he comes to stand in front of Richie. Like he is offering himself up, he thinks wryly. 

“Oh, you have abs,” Richie says, eyes wide, and he loops an arm around Eddie’s waist to pull him closer. He presses a kiss to his solar plexus, and Eddie feels it in the ripple of goosebumps along his arms and thighs. It is strange to be touched like this, to be looked at. 

“You knew that. I’ve sent you shirtless pictures.” Eddie runs his hands along Richie’s shoulders, his upper back, feeling the curve and knots of muscles, the jut of his shoulder blades. Richie has hair all along his back, too, and Eddie thinks that it should be unattractive but it just reminds him that Richie is a man, that Richie is exactly what he wants. 

“Yeah,” Richie hums and noses along his happy trail. One hand comes up to undo the button of Eddie’s jeans. “But it’s different up close.” Echoing what Eddie had thought earlier. 

The brief sound of the zipper going down hangs in the air. Eddie breathes in and out, in and out, shallow breaths so as to not give away anything embarrassing, like the way his dick is already half hard again just from this, or the way he wants to cradle Richie against his chest and kiss the crown of his head. 

Eddie has never considered himself to be an affectionate person. Not physically, not emotionally. It simply isn’t part of his shtick. When Bev gives, he gives back, hugging her and holding her hand when they’re both drunk, kissing her on the cheek and her knuckles, combing her hair when she gets overwhelmed, but he has always reasoned that it is simply what she needs. He hasn’t considered himself to be someone who might need this, too. 

But maybe this is why Whiskey Mark was the one to ghost him, and not the other way around. For all that Eddie now thinks back on their kiss outside the restaurant with amused disgust, in that moment he had leaned into the touch like a flower angling itself towards the sun. Had felt the ghost of an arm around his waist for days and days. 

He would never ask for it, though. His mother bangs her drum at the back of his head and he shrinks away from the noise into the skinny shape of boyhood, and she says, sickly sweet, _Eddie-bear, won’t you give Mommy a kiss? You know how sad I get._

When he tells Bev about this tomorrow he wonders how he is going to explain the bit where he thought about his dead mother while Richie undressed him. There are psychologists out there who would pay to get him under their metaphorical microscope, he is sure of it. 

In an effort to shake himself out of this stupid, melancholy haze he digs blunt fingernails into the flesh of Richie’s shoulder, grounding himself. Richie tilts his head back to look up at him and hooks his fingers in the belt loops of his jeans, tugging them down slightly. 

“Do you want to, uh,” he starts, the corner of his mouth twisted into uncertainty. “Fuck me?” 

Eddie swallows and nods wordlessly before he can lose his nerve again. He lets Richie pull off his jeans and breathes through the vulnerable feeling of being almost naked in front of this almost stranger. When Richie’s eyes sweep across his body from the column of his throat all the way down to his feet he wonders what he sees. Is he Richie’s type? Do people have ‘types’, these days? Eddie certainly does, given the way that all it took was one look at Richie’s bare chest for him to be possessed by some sort of demon, or a very horny ghost. 

He pushes Richie down on his back, gentle but firm, and crawls on top of him, a reverse of their earlier position. Without much fanfare he guides Richie’s hips up so he can pull his jeans down as well, and he sits back on his heels to fold them into something that could be considered neat if you squint. 

When he looks down at Richie, shirtless and lying beneath him, Eddie’s heart thumps nervously against his ribcage. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands now that he is here, but Richie solves this for him by pulling him back down so Eddie has no choice but to prop himself up on his elbows. They kiss and it feels almost easy, familiar. Richie takes hold of Eddie’s hips and rocks into him so their cocks slide together through the thin fabric of their briefs. 

Eddie moans softly and for a moment he is distracted from everything he is unsure about by the heat low in his belly, the trembling of his legs on either side of Richie. He licks into Richie’s mouth with a confidence he only found in the last few minutes, curls his fingers into his dark hair and tugs him back for a better angle. Richie’s groan rumbles low in his chest, Eddie feels it in his bones. 

They find a rhythm that grows increasingly frantic, grinding against each other and kissing sloppily. It’s simple, this. He doesn’t need to think, or focus on anything but the slide of his dick against Richie’s, the way blood is rushing in his ears like he is on a late-night run to the Hudson. Given enough time and effort he might come like this, without even taking off his underwear, but he couldn't live with the embarrassment.

He kisses down Richie's neck and his collarbones, his chest as far as he can reach. Richie squirms and gasps underneath him when he bites very gently at his nipple, so he does it again, once, twice more, and Richie rakes blunt nails down his back in return. Eddie wonders if he should be talking, thinks that it might be hot if Richie did, actually, why is he being so silent? Isn't he chatty? Earlier in the evening he couldn't shut the fuck up, and now that Eddie might want him to speak he has suddenly decided to be quiet?

He decides then that if he wants Richie to talk, he has to make him, somehow. He moves back down to Richie's chest and takes his nipple into his mouth, licking and sucking lightly. Richie lets out a shaky breath and arches his back up, giving Eddie better access. Their rhythm stutters for a moment, a distracted fumble, but then Richie cants his hips just so and it's good again, overwhelmingly so. Eddie makes a needy, high-pitched sound and he has never felt more like a fucking virgin than he does now, not even when he still was one.

"You like that, baby?" Richie asks, voice lower than expected, and Eddie would roll his eyes at how fucking corny it is if not for the fact that it makes his stomach swoop and his cheeks flush.

"Yeah," he says, intensely embarrassed, and he noses along Richie’s throat so he doesn't have to look at him when he asks, "Do you— Can I fuck you now?"

He can feel Richie's nod more than he can see it, but hears him when he breathes, "Yeah, yes, fuck."

Eddie leans up to press a kiss to his jaw and sits up. He shifts until he is straddling Richie's thighs, then hooks his fingers in the waistband of his briefs and gives a questioning tug.

"Yeah, c'mon, we don't have all night," Richie says, his eyes glinting.

Eddie pulls at the waistband and then lets go so it snaps against Richie's skin. "Fuck off," he huffs but he slides the briefs down to Richie's thighs anyways.

Much like the rest of Richie's body, seeing his dick in the flesh is something of a shock. Eddie licks his lips as he stares down at it, flushed red and hard, a bead of precum sitting on the head like a dew drop. It's not... pretty, per se, but Eddie still finds himself looking for longer than strictly necessary.

"You gonna stare at it all night or...?" Richie asks, the asshole, and Eddie pinches his thigh childishly in response.

"Jesus, you're annoying."

"So I've been told."

Eddie rolls his eyes and climbs off him so he can pull his underwear off all the way. Richie unhelpfully kicks his legs, nearly getting tangled in the process, and Eddie hisses at him to _fucking stop moving, dude, I swear to God_.

They end up naked, the both of them, and kneeling in front of each other on the bed. Eddie has lost all of the confidence he somehow gained during their five minutes of dry-humping, overwhelmed by the possibilities that Richie's naked body offers, and he crosses his arms for lack of a better idea of what to do with them.

Richie fully laughs at him.

"Stop, fuck you, stop laughing!"

"Why do you look like you're going to scold me for doodling in the margins, man?" Richie giggles, reaching out to grasp Eddie's forearms to try and pull them apart. "What's with this?"

"I'm fucking inexperienced, alright?" Eddie snaps and slaps away Richie's hands.

"Oh, dude, I know," Richie grins.

Eddie wants to fucking die. 

"It's fine, though," Richie continues, clearly trying to placate him. "I am, too! We're just doing our best!"

"This isn't a fucking elementary school project," Eddie snaps. " _Doing our best?_ I'm trying to fuck you, not get a gold star for my finger painting."

Richie laughs again, but at least this time it's at Eddie's joke and not _at Eddie._ He moves closer and for a moment Eddie considers running away, but he thinks that if he takes another bathroom break Richie might just kick him to the curb. So he stays still when Richie puts an arm around him, slowly as though Eddie is a skittish deer, and then wraps his hand around Eddie's dick.

Eddie inhales sharply.

"This okay?" Richie asks gently, and oh, Eddie hates that, hates being babied, but he knows that he only brought this on to himself.

"Yes," he says through gritted teeth. "Fine."

Richie's laugh vibrates through him, a warm sound, and he slowly starts jerking him off. "You don't have to sound too happy about it."

Eddie doesn't dignify that with a response. He drops his head on Richie's shoulder in something akin to surrender and focuses on the warm pleasure, the joy of having your dick touched by someone other than yourself.

"We can just do this," Richie says softly, his breath hot in Eddie's hair. "You don't have to fuck me. I could blow you?"

"Fuck," Eddie breathes and squeezes his eyes shut. That might be nice. He wouldn't have to worry about technique, about lube and fingering and like, finding Richie's _prostate._

But who knows when he will get the chance again? The only reason he is even here now is Richie's persistent texting and Bev's exasperated reassurance. He might not ever find someone who wants to have sex with him again.

"No," he says after a moment of silence, save for the slick slide of Richie's hand. "I want to, I— I want to fuck you."

Richie makes a soft sound in the back of his throat, something like a whine, and his rhythm is thrown off briefly. He regains it and uses his free hand to grasp Eddie's nape, to pull him back gently so he can kiss him.

Eddie bucks his hips into Richie's fist and lets himself be kissed, deeply. Some of the tension he has carried with him all night bleeds away, like Richie is taking it with every swipe of his tongue, and Eddie finally gets his shit together long enough to start jerking Richie off in return.

"Fuck," Richie sighs into the kiss and Eddie, encouraged by it, runs his hand down his back and cups his ass. He gives a tentative squeeze, then dips the tips of his fingers in between his cheeks.

Richie pulls back and leans his forehead against Eddie's. His face is flushed and his lips are wet with spit, his glasses sit awkwardly on the bridge of his nose. He looks good like that. Really good. If there were no social rules preventing him from it, Eddie would sit and stare at him for hours.

"Where do you want me?" Richie asks, his thumb rubbing circles into the side of Eddie's neck.

"Uh, on your knees?" Eddie swallows dryly. "If you want."

Richie nods frantically and presses a quick kiss to Eddie's mouth. Then he lets go, turns around with a bit of ungainly shuffling, and gets on his knees as Eddie asked, the side of his face pressed into the pillow and his arms crossed underneath it, his hips in the air.

Heat throbs through Eddie's veins at the sight of him. He reaches out to trace the shape of Richie's lower back, his ass, his hairy thighs, and wills himself to not say or do anything embarrassing.

"Oh, shit, lube and condoms are in the top bedside drawer. By the way," Richie says, his voice hoarse. "But no rush, amigo. Take your time."

"Can you please not call me 'amigo' when I'm about to put my fingers in your ass?"

"I can't promise that."

Eddie sighs and crawls over to the side of the bed. He digs through the drawer until he finds a box of condoms and a bottle of lube and returns to where Richie is still kneeling patiently. Eddie's hands shake as he uncaps the lube and squeezes some onto his fingers.

For a moment he just sits there and stares at Richie's ass, hairy and pale as it is. Intimidating, somehow. Eddie has never been this close to someone else's ass. Myra would probably rather have walked into oncoming traffic than let him anywhere near hers, and he just hasn't gotten the chance since the separation.

"Are you waiting for a sign from God there, buddy?"

Eddie resists the urge to smack him on one of his pasty cheeks. They probably haven't reached the spanking stage of this one night stand yet.

"Fuck you. And don't call me buddy, for fuck’s sake."

Richie laughs and it shakes his whole body. "Hm, you kiss your mother with that mouth?"

"My mother is dead," Eddie says.

"Jesus Christ," Richie giggles and he cranes his neck to look at Eddie. "Can we move on to the bit where you finger me now?"

"I'm fucking— I'm working up to it, okay? Give me a fucking second."

Richie buries his face in the pillow and wiggles his hips. "Whenever you're ready, I guess," he says, voice muffled.

Eddie takes a deep breath. _You've got this, babe._

Great. Apparently he needs a pep talk for this shit now. And why did that sound like Bev? He doesn't want her to be involved in this.

When he moves a little closer and hesitantly prods the tight ring of muscle between Richie's cheeks, Richie makes a quiet noise of surprise.

Eddie bites his lower lip in concentration and pushes the tip of his finger into the tight heat of him. It's weird as fuck, irritatingly different from doing it to himself. 

"Is that okay?" Eddie asks, annoyed at how nervous he sounds, how needy.

"I might look like one but I'm not actually a virgin," Richie says lightly. "You don’t have to treat me like one.”

Eddie doesn't want to tell him that this is definitely not for his sake so he stays quiet and slides his finger in all the way. It goes easily enough, thanks to the lube. 

The sheer terror he feels at somehow fucking this up, the performance anxiety, means that Eddie is nowhere near hard anymore. This isn't even sexy, it's clinical. He is reminded, with startling intensity, of his annual prostate exam.

He crooks his finger a little, just to see if anything will happen. Richie exhales sharply and pushes his hips back, as if asking for more. Eddie breathes through the anxiety coiled tightly in his chest and pulls his finger out so he can add a second.

He resists the urge to ask Richie if it's okay again, desperate for some sort of validation. Maybe he should have let him top, at least that way he wouldn't be responsible for this part. He could just lie there and make Richie do all the work.

"C'mon, dude," Richie whines when Eddie takes a little too long to do anything, his hand hovering awkwardly near his hole.

"Fucking hell, fine," Eddie snaps and pushes two fingers in with a little too much force.

Richie moans into the pillow. Encouraged, Eddie fucks his fingers into him all the way and for a moment it's actually kind of hot, the way his back arches, the tight heat that makes Eddie wonder what it would feel like on his dick.

If he could get it up again, that is. _Fuck._

He scissors his fingers inside of Richie and feels a little less like Dr Haines doing his eighth prostate exam of the day and thinking about what he wants for dinner. Eddie flushes right down to his chest and his dick twitches in something akin to interest.

"Fuck, that's good," Richie breathes, turning his head so that his cheek is squished against the pillow.

Eddie can see now that Richie's hands are clutching at the navy blue sheets, white-knuckled, which means he must be doing _something_ right, even if it doesn't feel like it.

"Yeah?" he asks and immediately feels like a fucking asshole for it. What is he, some kind of macho man? _Yeah, you like that, baby? You like the way I fuck you?_

His face burns red hot, and the back of his neck prickles with sweat. He fucks his fingers in and out of Richie with more confidence than he thought he could muster right now. When he angles them just so, Richie jerks beneath him and lets out a shaky moan.

"Right there," he gasps. "Please."

Eddie obliges. He tries to focus on Richie's reactions, the way he breathes in and out loudly, like he is running, and the way his body jerks and moves in response. It's good, then. He gets lost in it for a moment, gets out of his head so he can try to give Richie what he wants, even if he feels incompetent and virginal. 

He adds a third finger when Richie asks, practically begs him to and he tentatively wraps his free hand around his own cock. 

"Can you— Do you want to fuck me?" Richie asks, looking at him over his shoulder. "Please?"

His face is flushed and his lips spit-red, his glasses have left red indents on the bridge of his nose where the pillow pressed them into the skin. He looks hot, frankly, and Eddie would like to crawl up to kiss him senseless but he thinks that might take him out of whatever tentatively horny mood he has gotten himself back into so instead he pushes his fingers back into Richie once, twice, making him moan on them, and then pulls back.

"Okay," he says, breathless. "Yes."

With slippery fingers Eddie tries to open the condom wrapper. It takes him so embarrassingly long that when he finally manages to tear the foil he has to resist the urge to say “thank fuck” out loud. He gives himself a few strokes, as if to psych himself up, and then rolls the condom onto his dick.

"I might need to—" Richie starts and gestures vaguely towards his legs. "Move. I'm old and I don't exercise, y'know?"

"You should be stretching daily at your age," Eddie says.

Richie laughs as he rolls over onto his back. "What am I, eighty? We're the same age, grandpa."

"I know that! That's why I stretch daily," Eddie bristles and grips the meat of Richie's thighs, blunt fingernails leaving crescent shapes in the skin there.

"Alright, Doctor K. Want to stop giving me medical advice and get your dick inside of me?"

Eddie scowls at him, mostly to hide the way fear shoots through him like lighting. What if he fucks this up? What if his dick isn't the right shape? The right size? What if he can't find a good rhythm?

 _Oh God_ , what if he comes within a few seconds? It might just be too much for him to handle. What if he has a fucking heart attack?

"You okay there, dude?" Richie asks, one eyebrow quirked. "You've gone a bit, uh, pale."

"I'm fine," Eddie says, too quickly to be believable. "I'm fine. Do you need like, a pillow? For your ass?"

He read in a blog post about anal sex that it can help with the angle but he isn't about to tell Richie that is where he got that info from.

"Hm, maybe," Richie nods and he drags one of the pillows piled at the top of the bed underneath his hips. He wriggles to get comfortable, then puts his fleet flat on the mattress so his knees are bent. "Now give it to me, baby."

Eddie grimaces. "Don't— Don't say that."

"Hm," Richie grins. "Fuck me hard, daddy? Do me, hunk?"

"Neither of those." Eddie moves closer and holds Richie by the hips. He lines his cock up with Richie's hole so the head is nudging in between his cheeks. "Uh, okay. I'm gonna—"

"Just do it, man," Richie says lightly. "I'll tell you if it sucks."

Fuck, it's going to suck, isn't it? Eddie screws his eyes shut and takes a deep breath, then realises he needs them open if he wants to actually get inside of him so he reluctantly looks down.

"Okay," he says again and the embarrassment is almost too much for him to handle. He grasps the base of his dick and pushes in a tiny bit, no more than half an inch.

When he looks up to check if Richie is still happy about this, the guy is staring at him with wide eyes, his forehead glistening with sweat.

"You good?" Eddie asks, fearing the worst. 

"Oh my god," Richie groans. "The tip of your dick isn't going to fucking break me, dude. Can you please fuck me?"

Eddie bristles at his tone and rocks his hips forwards in defiance, somewhat accidentally sliding halfway into him.

"Oh, fuck," Richie gasps and his hands fly to clutch the sheets again.

"Oh." Eddie breathes in and out, in and out, and he repeats the motion until he bottoms out. It's overwhelming, the tight heat of him, and he doesn't know how to proceed. For a moment he just stares down at Richie's body, his hairy thighs, his flushed and leaking cock, his soft stomach, and he tries to remember how sex works. This part should be easy, not much different from having sex with Myra, except he was never actually very good at that either, largely due to a complete lack of enthusiasm on both sides.

He moves eventually if only to save himself from more of Richie's bitchy commentary, and he feels every clench of muscle around him at the bottom of his spine. His grip on Richie's hips is bruising, must be painful, and strands of his hair stick to his sweaty forehead. Beneath him, Richie grips the bedsheets and gasps every time Eddie fucks back into him.

"Oh shit, Eds," Richie groans when Eddie changes the angle slightly.

"Not my name," Eddie pants. "You dickhead."

When Richie laughs it unfortunately means that he clenches around him right as Eddie rocks his hips into him and Eddie nearly fucking comes then and there.

"Shit," he hisses and stills. "Give me— Fuck, give me a second."

Richie stares up at him incredulously. "Dude, come on. I'm dying here."

"I know, me too, just let me—"

To take some pressure off his knees, because not even daily stretches can make up for the impact running has on his joints, he pushes himself forwards until he is covering Richie's body with his own, his elbows on either side of his face. Richie brings his leg up and hooks it around Eddie’s waist for a better angle, and Eddie loses his mind about how unassumingly sexy that is. 

The intimacy of the new position nearly makes him want to go back to where he was before, to put some distance between them, but Richie wraps an arm around him so he has no choice but to stay.

Tentatively, with trembling thighs, he starts moving again. Slow at first because he worries he is going to come within seconds if he doesn't pace himself, but he picks up speed after a moment because every part of him is practically begging for it. His throat is dry and he feels feverish. Despite the hot pleasure of it, his chest still feels tight with worry — now mainly about the fact he might come too quickly and make an ass of himself even more so than he already has.

With a stifled whine, Richie arches upwards so his dick rubs against Eddie's stomach. Eddie takes the hint and reaches between them to wrap one hand around him. The angle is awkward, his arm wedged between their bodies, but Richie moans with every stilted stroke. 

Eddie knows with every fibre of his being that it has been something like three minutes and he _cannot_ come yet, Richie is going to fucking hate him, maybe there is a Yelp for sex after all and he just doesnt know about it because he doesn’t know enough gay men, but with every thrust it becomes harder to hold on to reason. 

In a desperate effort to distract himself from the building pressure in his abdomen he tilts his head down to kiss Richie, but he underestimated how good that would feel, too. Richie licks into his mouth eagerly and makes breathy, soft sounds, little fucked out ‘ah, ah, ah’s, and then he bites Eddie’s lower lip and it’s all fucking over. 

Eddie’s hips stutter as he comes, hard and sudden, with a shocked moan against Richie's lips. His vision whites out for a moment and his hand stills awkwardly on Richie's dick, wedged in between their sweaty bodies.

The high of the orgasm is instantly replaced by crushing shame. He buries his face in the crook of Richie's shoulder and allows himself to hide there for a brief moment, his eyes screwed shut and his chest heaving.

"Are you... good?" Richie asks, sounding as out of breath as Eddie. From what? The five minutes he spent lying on his back?

"I'm— Yeah, fine. Sorry."

Richie pats him on the back which doesn't help to alleviate Eddie's humiliation in the slightest. 

He is still inside Richie somehow, and it's starting to become a little uncomfortable so he pushes himself up on his elbows and pulls out. The motion makes him grimace, his dick too overstimulated for it to be anything but too much.

He doesn't look at Richie as he shifts back onto his knees and pulls the pink condom off. He ties a knot at the base, then looks around for somewhere to put it.

"Here," Richie says and reaches over the edge of the bed to pick a bin up off the floor.

Eddie feels the childish urge to throw it and see if he can get it in from four feet away but he thinks that if he misses he will have to leave the country. The potato farmer life in Novosibirsk is starting to sound more appealing by the minute. Instead, he crawls over to the edge and carefully drops the condom in it, not leaving any room for error.

Then he sits back on his heels and finally, finally looks at Richie, but only after reminding himself he never has to see him again after tonight. He could get dressed and leave right now, his home is only a thirty minute Uber drive away. This is fine.

Unexpectedly, Richie looks content. His cheeks are pink and his lips dark, there's a hickey on his collarbone that Eddie doesn't remember putting there, and his glasses are pushed up into his hair so his eyes are unfocused, glazed over. His cock is still hard, darker than the rest of him, and it's laying against his stomach and dripping precum into the hair below his navel.

Just as Eddie looks over, Richie slides his glasses back down on his nose and licks his lips. He gives Eddie a shy, hopeful look, like he actually wants something from him after that performance, _what the shit_ , and he says, "Can I come on your stomach?"

"What?" Eddie asks, dumbfounded.

Richie clears his throat and says, "Uh, it's just— You have abs and I think it would be hot? Maybe?"

"Oh." Eddie blinks. "Yes."

"Yeah?"

"Sure, how do you— where should I—?"

"If you just lay down, I could kneel. Above you, I mean." Richie sits up and wipes his forehead, sweeping his curls out of his face in the process, a nervous gesture.

Eddie would honestly do anything to convince Richie he isn't a terrible fuck at this point so he is on his back faster than he can think.

"Huh," Richie says with a throaty laugh. "Eager."

"Fuck off," Eddie snaps though the effect is somewhat diminished by the imbalanced dynamic of the position.

Richie shuffles until he is kneeling besides him and he runs a hand down Eddie's chest, circling each of his nipples with his thumb, tracing the faint outline of his ribs, the shape of his abs. Eddie wants to shy away from the touch, wants to curl up on his side and lie there until it's the morning and Richie has hopefully left for work or something — whatever it is famous stand-up comedians do on a Saturday. 

It's too much to be touched like this when he isn't hazy with arousal anymore. It feels like worship, and Eddie can't stand it.

But he stays still because written across Richie's face is _want,_ is _awe,_ and all he has to do is let him take it. So he bites his lip and watches as Richie takes his cock in his hand and starts jerking himself off in quick, practiced movements, all the while his fingers flit across Eddie's upper body, his pecs, his arms, until finally cupping the side of his face. Eddie almost jerks away, skittish as he feels, but the blissed out look on Richie's face makes him stop.

"Fuck, you're so hot," Richie gasps and his thumb comes to rest on Eddie's lower lip. "Look at you."

Eddie doesn't feel particularly hot, feels a little more like a sweaty naked mole-rat than anything resembling the definition of the word, but he isn't about to fight Richie on it. Almost instinctively, he parts his lips to take Richie's thumb into his mouth, possessed by some primal urge.

"Oh my god," Richie moans and he looks completely wrecked. "'m not gonna last, fuck, holy shit."

Eddie tries to somehow convey the concept of dirty talk with his eyes while he sucks on Richie's thumb, grateful that he has an excuse not to speak because he cannot for the life of him come up with anything sufficiently seductive to say in response. 

"Shit, oh fuck, fuck, Eddie, shit," Richie gasps, his hips jerking helplessly, and Eddie likes that Richie says his name as though he can take any credit for this orgasm. "I'm gonna— Shit, oh, you're so—"

And then he comes in hot spurts across Eddie's stomach with a breathless moan. His thumb slips out of Eddie's mouth and he strokes himself through the aftershocks before collapsing onto the bed next to him.

"Jesus Christ," Richie says.

Eddie stares at the ceiling above, the smooth, white paint.

Richie continues, "That was good."

With an incredulous laugh, Eddie pushes himself up onto his forearms and looks over at him. "Was it?"

"Huh?" Richie frowns at him, looking as adorable as a forty year old man can look. "Wasn't it?"

"I don't need the ego boost, dude, it's fine," Eddie sighs and scrubs a hand across his face. Come is drying on his stomach and he really wants to take a fucking shower, but he can do that at home.

"I'm not— Why would I _lie_?" Richie gives him a playful shove. "C'mon, get the hell out of whatever post-sex crisis you're in right now and let's get you cleaned up so we can cuddle."

Eddie can't resist shoving him back, like a fucking child. Like he is pigtail pulling on the playground.

"I'm not staying the night," he tells him plainly. "I'm going to get cleaned up and go home."

He doesn't miss the flash of hurt on Richie's face before he schools it into something more neutral, but Eddie refuses to feel bad. He has to _go home._ This is a one night stand. If he stays, he might do something stupid like ask to see him again.

"Dude, it's like 2am," Richie says. "Just stay. We don't need to cuddle."

Eddie sits up and swings his legs over the edge of the bed. The wooden floor is cool beneath his feet.

"I'm going to the bathroom," he says quietly and gets up.

He picks up his clothes along the way, his underwear and his good _Marsh_ sweater, his jeans, and he resolutely does not look at Richie. There is no reason for the guy to be hurt by this. They don't know each other and the boundaries of this hook-up were clear — or so Eddie thought. Is he committing some sort of faux pas by leaving? Surely not. This is standard one night stand behaviour: You meet, you fuck, you leave.

He digs through Richie's bathroom shelf for some wet wipes and cleans the drying come off his stomach. The longer he stays, the harder it will be not to think of this as more than it is. He knows himself, knows that his imagination tends to get away from him, knows the way he gets caught up in gestures and subtext, the reason that he still thinks about the compliment Saheli in HR paid him two years ago. 

With a sigh he runs the tap, splashes his face with cold water, and washes his hands thoroughly.

In the distance, he hears police sirens. He looks out of the small bathroom window, and it's so high that he can only see the night sky. It's really snowing now, nothing like the light flurry from earlier. Unsurprising given the temperatures, but the ferocity of it makes him pause. He remembers the weather warning he swiped away earlier, in the back of the Uber, and he wonders what it said. Perhaps a wind chill warning? He has his three layers, plus a thick parka, and he can wait up here until the Uber comes so he doesn't have to stand in the cold.

He uses some of Richie's mouthwash and wonders if that is crossing some sort of line. His Sex Yelp review is looking worse by the minute. Once he feels adequately cleaned up, or at least enough so that he can face the ride home without having a panic attack, he gets dressed and finger-combs his hair into submission in front of the mirror.

There is a faint mark on the side of his throat, not quite a hickey but close enough. If it isn't gone by Monday, he will have to wear a scarf to work. Maybe he could tell people it's a rash? Not that anyone would give enough of a shit to ask. His colleagues barely make small talk with him about the weather, let alone about weekend sexual exploits. _Jesus._

Richie is on the couch in the living room, dressed in shorts and a ratty old Hawkeye t-shirt that is one size too small and rides up around his midriff. He looks like a twenty-something stoner. He looks like every single guy Eddie ever had an ill-advised, undefined crush on in college. 

The infomercial channel is playing on TV, advertising something that might be a blender or a futuristic toilet brush.

"I'm going," Eddie says, standing in the doorway to the room.

Richie turns the volume down and nods at him. He looks— he looks lonely. The couch is too big for just him, his shoulders are hunched.

Eddie swallows around the guilt lodged in his throat.

"Alright, man," Richie says.

Eddie fishes his phone out of his back pocket and goes on the Uber app to order a ride. Once requested, he absently swipes down and sees the WEA weather warning from earlier still sitting in his recent notifications.

[ **Emergency alert:** Extreme Blizzard Warning this area until 6:00PM EDT Monday. Avoid travel. Check media.]

"Oh, shit." Eddie stares down at the notification with wide eyes. 

From the couch, Richie asks, "What?"

Eddie switches back to the Uber app. Still searching, no nearby drivers. He swipes back to the notification, sees another one at the top.

[ **Emergency Alert** : All non-emergency vehicles must be off all roads in NYC by 2AM until further notice.]

It's 1:53am. There is no way a driver will accept his request. Eddie feels like he's been pushed into a lake in the depth of winter. 

"It's just—"

Can he walk it? He thumbs over to Maps, enables his location and puts in his address. It's a four hour walk. For a brief, hysterical moment Eddie considers undertaking it. His brain helpfully supplies the vision of some poor mailman finding his frozen corpse under a bridge somewhere in Cobble Hill in the morning, so he shakes off the idea.

"There's a blizzard," he says and finally looks up at Richie. "Did you know there's a blizzard? In New York City?” 

Richie stares at him. "Huh?"

"Huh?!" Eddie repeats, his voice shrill. "There's a blizzard! Right now!"

"Right, okay."

"'All non-emergency vehicles must be off all roads in NYC by 2AM'," he reads out. "Fuck!"

"Dude, I already said you should stay. Wait it out here and you can go home tomorrow."

"Yes, but I—" _I don't want to._ He doesn't say it. Thinks it might be cruel, if he did. "The warning is in effect until Monday."

Richie blinks at him blearily. "So stay until Monday. Whatever."

"What the fuck, I can't just—"

"I'll take the couch if you don't want to share. It's one of those, uh," he gestures vaguely. "Pull out sofa beds?"

Eddie frowns at him. His mind races but physically he is exhausted, so tired that he feels it in his bones. He wants desperately to be in bed, _his_ bed, not the reminder of his four minute attempt at fucking a guy in the room next door. In an ideal world he would be high out of his mind in forty-five minutes. He would call Bev so they can laugh about this together, and then he would to rub some diluted lavender oil on the inside of his wrists and go the fuck to sleep.

_In an ideal world._

He is too tired to argue. Here is this man, this ridiculous stranger, who wants him to stay, and outside; a blizzard. Richie’s apartment is warm and homely, it welcomes him. And what choice does he have? Bev is spending the weekend with her new girlfriend — are they official yet? He can’t keep track — in New Rochelle, and even if he had a spare key to her loft, walking any amount of time in a blizzard at 2am sounds like hell, let alone two and a half hours to Bushwick. Eddie can’t think of anyone he knows in Manhattan who would let him stay the weekend, or even just the night. 

Richie is still looking at him, a hesitant smile on his face. 

So Eddie says, “Fine. Do you have clean sheets?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I came up with this idea before I knew that the movie Two Night Stand (2014) exists. I have never seen the movie Two Night Stand (2014) and probably never will. But as far as I can tell it's pretty much this exact concept, blizzard and all, so I guess this is a Two Night Stand AU. 
> 
> Part 2 will be up when it's up! I wish I could give a concrete date but I also have the OTEOS epilogue to write so it might be a few weeks.


	2. PART II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you follow me on twitter you probably already know but for personal reasons (read: I cannot shut up) this will be three parts instead of two. I don't know if that is a good thing or a bad thing. If it's bad, I am so sorry. If it's good, you're welcome.
> 
> Thanks to Lynne for being generally cool and encouraging, and to Rants for singlehandedly making this happen by being competitive in our word sprints.

Richie Tozier does, in fact, have clean sheets but it takes him close to half an hour to find them. Resigned to a terrible fate, Eddie steps out into the hallway and calls Bev because he doesn't know what he might do if he stays to watch this man rifle through every corner of his apartment because he has forgotten where he put his _spare bedsheets_. He really should have heeded the warning sign of the peeling paint in the bathroom, maybe then he would have made it home before the second emergency warning. 

Bev laughs at him for a solid five minutes when he tells her what happened.

"It's not that fucking funny," Eddie hisses and paces the length of the corridor. "I'm trapped with this guy, what if he fucking eats me? What if he kicks me out tomorrow and I have to somehow make it to Bay Ridge on foot?"

"Buddy, this man clearly wants you to stay. It sounds like he practically begged you to." She bursts out laughing again, little breathless giggles like she just can't help it. "And he's famous? Like genuinely famous?"

"Yes," Eddie groans. "He is _famous_ famous. The personal life section on his Wikipedia page has _subsections."_

" _No!"_ Bev gasps. "Not subsections!"

"Stop fucking making fun of me for like a second and be a good friend," Eddie snaps. "I'm _panicking.”_

"Eddie," she says gently. "It's going to be okay. I'm sure this anonymous famous guy won't try to eat you. Tell me his address and I will make sure to avenge you if he does."

With a put out sigh, Eddie leans against the wall nearest to him. "That doesn't fill me with much confidence. I don't want to be avenged, I want to survive the weekend."

"You will," she promises. “If he starts to give you really weird vibes, just get a hotel nearby."

"He is already giving me weird vibes now."

"Okay, so I meant vibes weirder than 'he is a little messy and his bathroom might develop a mold problem in like two years time if he isn't careful'."

Eddie's face burns with embarrassment. "Fuck off," he snaps. "I don't know why I called you anyways. Why are you awake?"

She sounds endlessly smug when she says, "Sex marathon with Bennie, babe. What else?"

"Forget I fucking asked." He pushes himself off the wall and considers going back inside. His body aches with how tired he is, and the stress of the day burrows deep beneath his skin like a parasite. "I'm going to hang up now."

"Aw," Bev says, an exaggerated whine to her voice. "Whatever will I do without you? I guess I'll have to go back to fucking my hot girlfriend."

"Yeah, yeah," Eddie huffs. "Rub it in."

"I will," she says brightly. "Enjoy the sweet embrace of your famous lover."

"We're not sharing the fucking bed."

"Oh my god, Kaspbrak, are you making him sleep on the couch? After you just fucked him?"

Eddie refuses to feel bad. He _refuses._

"Yes," he says. "Goodnight, Bev."

"You’re a terrible person. Goodnight, lover."

He finds Richie in the bedroom, kneeling at the centre of the mattress and struggling to fit the sheet on it. The old bedding lies in a haphazard pile on the floor, like the crumpled remains of Eddie's dignity.

For a moment Eddie just stands in the doorway and watches him, bemused. When the right top corner of the sheet slips off the corner of the mattress for the third time in a row he asks, "Do you need help or...?"

Richie nearly jumps out of his skin.

"Jesus Christ," he says, clutching his heart. He gives Eddie a dark look. "Warn a guy. I didn't know you were coming back."

"Where the fuck would I go?" Eddie steps up to the side of the bed and gestures for Richie to get off. "You think I'm going to risk dying in a blizzard?"

"To get away from me? Probably," Richie shrugs. He climbs off the bed and gives Eddie free rein over the sheets.

He has the bed made within less than a minute.

“So, uh,” Richie says, hovering near the door. “Do you need anything?"

Eddie sits down on the edge of the mattress and interlaces his fingers in his lap, feeling like he is the last person to sit down in a dentist waiting area and everyone in the room is staring at him.

"I'm fine, thanks," he says.

"Right, cool."

They stare at each other silently. Eddie considers asking Richie to leave so he can stew in his misery by himself.

But then Richie clears his throat and says, "I'm gonna— Uh, yeah. Good night, man."

"Goodnight," Eddie says stiffly. "Sleep well."

"Hah, yep. Cool. You too." For a moment Richie just stands there and looks at some above Eddie’s head. Then he grins, dead behind the eyes, does a little wave and turns on his heel.

Eddie does not wave back because it would be an absurd thing to do.

In the morning it takes him a few minutes to remember where he is. The sheets feel different from his, they're soft from years and years of wear rather than from the high thread-count, and when he opens his eyes blearily even the brightness of the room feels different. Eddie's bedroom faces south, whereas this one gets the full force of a startling early-morning sun. 

When the previous night comes back to him in images, in sounds, in the feeling of Richie’s body, sweaty underneath him, his heart jumps in his throat. 

"Fuck," he hisses, "Shit. Fuck," and he tumbles out of bed. 

He tries to cling to some semblance of his normal routine to make himself feel better. First, he stands by the unfamiliar window and stretches towards the sun, then he bends down to touch his toes and stays there until blood is rushing in his ears and his fingertips start to tingle. When he comes up his vision swims, and he feels dizzy until he doesn't. That is normal. Encouraging a healthy blood flow.

The hardwood floor is cold underneath his hands as he does ten push-ups, rest, ten push-ups, rest, ten push-ups. It is hard and unforgiving against his spine during the ten reverse crunches, rest, ten reverse crunches, rest, ten reverse crunches.

He makes the bed. He checks his messages, then his emails. One new message from Bev, asking if he survived the night. Four emails in his primary inbox — one from his manager suggesting they work from home on Monday and Tuesday, one from a therapist he contacted but never got around to seeing asking him if he would like to arrange an appointment, two newsletters he doesn't know how to unsubscribe from.

He tidies whatever he can find to tidy, in this case the stray sock that Richie never got rid of last night, which he takes with him to the bathroom when he goes. He puts it atop the pile of clothes in the laundry basket gingerly, like placing something precious on a shrine. 

After washing his hands thoroughly, he rinses his mouth out with Richie's Listerine Ultraclean once again. Whatever hook-up rules were in place last night have long since been overturned, anyways. He _stayed the night_. And yes, he only stayed because he had no other choice, but that doesn't make it feel any better. 

There is a clean towel hanging over the edge of the bathtub, which Richie must have put there for him. Eddie has never before been as grateful for such a small act of hospitality. The presence of the towel means that he can put off having to face Richie a while longer. 

In the shower, he has a brief mental breakdown and nearly starts crying over the fact that there is no conditioner and the shampoo is a cheap, drugstore brand that smells like coconut. Eddie fucking hates the smell of coconut. The alternative would be to use body wash and he would rather die, so he uses the 3$ coconut shampoo, gritting his teeth the whole way and trying to breathe through his mouth.

When he fails to find hair gel anywhere in Richie's bathroom, he has to sit down on the floor and put his head between his knees. Wrapped in the fluffy, yellow towel Richie has so graciously provided him with, he breathes through something vaguely adjacent to a panic attack and hates his life.

Afterwards, he looks at his reflection in the mirror and sees a ghost.

"Fuck," he says empathetically. "Fuck off, asshole."

He is uncertain of who he is talking to, if it's himself or the hypothetical idea of Richie Tozier existing in the same space as him. The bathroom shares a wall with the living room so he can hear him moving around next door now, muffled sounds of footsteps and quiet, indiscernible noises. 

He takes his toothbrush and the solid toothpaste tabs from the side of the sink where he put them down earlier, and as he chews on a tab he feels extremely validated for always carrying them around with him. _Who’s laughing now, Beverly?_

While he brushes his teeth with aggressive vigour, he considers what he might say to Richie. Imagines how their conversation would go, how their _day_ would go. Stuck inside together, cooped up like hens. Maybe Richie has work to do? That would give Eddie a reason to stay away from him without being rude about it. They could just spend the next twelve hours avoiding each other and then he can go back to being unconscious for a little while. And the next day? Rinse and repeat. Until he can leave on Monday, ideally without having spoken to Richie at all. 

Footsteps in the hallway, with heavy heels. Then: A knock on the door.

Eddie spits into the sink and stares at himself in the mirror. He looks pale and awful. The bags under his eyes are harrowing. He looks like he has been awake for days. The yellow of the towel makes him look sickly, the light overhead casts stark, unflattering shadows in the valleys of his face. 

"Yo, Eds?"

"Don't call me that," Eddie mutters to himself. In the mirror, he looks like an asshole. He takes a deep breath, then turns to the door and asks loudly, "Yeah?"

"Do you want breakfast?" Richie sounds uncertain, almost nervous.

 _Oh._ The caricature of Richie that has taken on grotesque proportions in Eddie's head in the past half hour shrinks back into the shape of a man.

He is just some guy. Some guy that Eddie had bad sex with, yes, some guy who laughs too loudly at his own jokes and tells too many of them, yes, but a guy nonetheless. Not a cartoon villain, not some strange amalgamation of every college dorm stoner Eddie has ever met. Just a guy. 

Richie raps his knuckles against the door once more. "Yo, dude. Breakfast?"

Eddie rinses his mouth out under the tap and washes the toothpaste off his toothbrush. Then he gives himself one last, withering look in the mirror and turns to open the door.

Out in the hallway, Richie looks tired and warm, like the human embodiment of a well-loved hoodie. He is wearing the clothes Eddie last saw him in, the old t-shirt that is a size too small and the boxers, but around his shoulders he has wrapped the turquoise patterned blanket that lay folded on the sofa last night.

Richie blinks at him blearily.

"What kind of breakfast are we talking?" Eddie asks.

"Good morning to you too, sunshine," Richie chirps. "I was thinking pancakes?"

Eddie grimaces. Can he justify it? The excess gluten, the refined sugar? He jogs circles around the idea of it in his striatum. 

Oh, fuck it. He is trapped in a one bed apartment with a bad comedian during a New York blizzard. He deserves to eat food that makes his teeth hurt. 

“No pancakes?” Richie asks, clearly taking Eddie’s grimace at face value. 

And why wouldn’t he? He doesn’t know him. He doesn’t know that Eddie gets freaked out about diabetes, and heart health, and carcinogens, and cavities, and blood pressure, and all the ways in which his body could fall apart at any second and all the ways it would be his fault. 

Eddie swallows around nothing. He grips the door handle like a lifeline and says, “I’ll have a pancake.” 

Richie’s eyebrows attempt to reach his unreachable hairline. “One singular pancake?”

“Or two,” Eddie says, uncertain. “Potentially.”

“You’re so weird.” Richie tightens the blanket around himself and laughs airily. “I’ll make you two, just in case.”

Eddie doesn't know what to do with himself, with his hands or any other part of his body, is acutely aware of the way his damp hair must be plastered to his forehead, the odd tension in his shoulders that Richie must be able to _see_ or _feel_ or something else, there is no way it is going unnoticed.

"Thanks," he says and it comes out as something of a squeak. He clears his throat. "Do you, uh, need help?"

He wonders what Richie thinks of him now, in the harsh light of day. After a good night's sleep — or it might have been bad, since Eddie made him sleep on the fucking sofa, like an absolute asshole — does he still see a guy worth taking home? 

"Nah, dude, it's all good," Richie says, a dopey smile plastered across his face. He looks like he is happy that Eddie is there. "Give me twenty minutes."

It's not that Eddie thinks he is irredeemably ugly. He works out, he takes care of himself, he moisturises. His hair is usually neat, his nails are always clean, there are things about him that might be attractive to someone with a very specific type, or just questionable taste. But he is also extremely aware of every small thing that is off-putting to look at, from the complete lack of both upper and lower lip to the general rat-like shape of his face, the dark shadows under his eyes and the way he always looks a little bit like he has just been told that the printer ran out of cyan and there is no replacement cartridge anywhere in the building.

He says, "Okay."

Richie nods. "Okay."

For a moment they simply stand and stare at each other like two wild animals meeting in the dead of night. Then Richie, bafflingly, claps him on the bare shoulder with one large, warm hand and wanders off towards the kitchen.

Eddie watches him go, then goes to get dressed.

Breakfast is uncomfortable and strange. Richie seems to have a chronic need to fill any silence that arises so he tries to tell stories and jokes, ever the comedian, but Eddie lets him fall flat onto his face every time, too caught up in the messy tangle of his own thoughts to find it in him to humour the guy.

He is aware that he is being a dick but he doesn't know how to fix that. His instinctive defence mechanism has always been that of a hedgehog, curling up into a prickly ball to deter predators or, in this case, shitty comedians he has had soul-crushingly awful sex with.

The pancakes are good, at least. 

Eddie sits on the lone barstool at the kitchen island while Richie stands on the other side of it, his elbows on the wooden worktop. He is wearing Richie's clothes, after having another crisis in the bedroom half an hour earlier when he realised that he had nothing to wear but his clothes from last night, as a result of which Richie offered to let him raid his closet. A faded yellow tee with the words "Meow are you doing?" printed in red across the chest above to the screen print of a kitten, fresh, never-worn briefs that he found in their original packaging at the back of the wardrobe and is eternally grateful for, a pair of too-long grey sweatpants with the drawstring pulled tight so they don't fall down. He feels ridiculous.

Across from him, Richie is scooping up syrup with a piece of his last pancake, fully using his hands to eat like a savage fucking animal. 

Eddie watches with morbid curiosity as syrup drips down Richie's chin and he wipes it with the back of his hand, then proceeds to _lick it off._

"Who the fuck raised you?" Eddie asks him.

Richie looks up from his plate and grins. He says, "Oh, believe me, my parents had nothing to do with this. They tried their best."

"Clearly their best was not enough."

"Don't worry, I washed my hands."

Eddie raises his eyebrows. "I should fucking hope so, bro."

"I think it's funny that you use 'bro'," Richie says and picks up another pancake. Once again _with his bare hands._ "It seems out of character."

"What? How would you know?"

Richie holds up his hands and laughs. "Chill, I'm just saying. Based on first impressions, that's all. I'm not making any claims about your personality."

Eddie stabs at a piece of pancake with his fork. He drags it through the small amount of syrup drizzled on his plate, nothing compared to the puddle on Richie's, and frowns down at it.

"You don't seem like the kind of person to have houseplants," he says after a pause.

"Huh, really?"

When he looks up, Richie is smiling easily. It's like he is determined to make Eddie feel bad for how awkward he is by being extremely chill and friendly in return.

What Eddie planned to say was: _Yes. You seem like someone who would struggle to keep them alive._

But it's too prickly. It's unfair. He shouldn't lash out. The only real option is to avoid Richie at all cost, so that is precisely what he will do.

Instead of saying anything at all, he shrugs and looks resolutely down at his plate, hoping that Richie will let the conversation die. He will ice him out if he has to.

"I've named them all," Richie tells him. "They're like my children. This one here, that's Pauline."

He points at the spider plants perched on a shelf below a ridiculous, frog-shaped wall clock.

Eddie nods politely.

"And that's Frikadelle." He points at the aloe vera plant on the kitchen counter behind him. "It's a kind of flat meatball. Popular in Germany, I think."

Eddie can't help but say, "Really? It looks like aloe vera to me."

Richie laughs so hard he nearly chokes. It's much more of a reaction than the joke warranted. Eddie has to bite down on a pleased smile.

So much for icing him out.

"I'm going to do some work," Eddie says while washing up the dishes. "Emails and shit."

Richie leans on the counter next to him and says, "Dude, it's a Saturday!"

Does he genuinely want to hang out? Eddie frowns down at his sud-covered hands. What could he possibly want from him? Surely he knows by now that Eddie is not exactly a good time.

"I have a lot going on next week. Better to stay ahead of schedule."

"Very sensible. How boring of you."

"We can't all be comedians with Netflix money," Eddie mutters. 

"Hey! My Netflix money paid for your beer last night, so be nice to it."

Eddie scoffs. "I could have paid for my own beer."

"I know, I've seen your little suit," says Richie.

"Not everyone who wears a suit is rich." He rinses off the plate and puts it on the draining board, then starts on the cutlery.

"Yes, but it's a _fancy_ suit."

"I'm surprised you know the difference."

"I've been to enough red carpet events to know what an expensive suit looks like," Richie says as he begins to dry the frying pan.

Eddie rinses his fork under the tap, the last thing left in the sink. He sets it down on the draining board, dries his hand on the clean dish towel on the side and turns to Richie.

"Where should I work?"

"Take the living room, buddy," Richie says. "I have shit to do. Like, uh, spring cleaning."

He sounds uncertain. Eddie doubts he actually had any plans to clean until he just said it. But he doesn't comment on it because that is what he is trying to avoid. Unfortunately for him, Richie is stupidly easy to talk to. He has to take himself out of this situation, lest they actually end up _hanging out._

So he gives Richie an awkward nod, takes the half-empty cup of coffee he had with his pancakes and escapes into the living room.

Some time around 4pm, Richie flops down next to Eddie on the sofa with a dramatic sigh. 

“Listen,” he starts and adjusts his glasses. "I'm not going to kick you out."

Eddie looks up from his phone. 

"Alright," he says after a moment of silence. "Thanks?"

"I'm not going to kick you out," Richie repeats. "But if you're going to pretend I either don't exist or am some sort of criminal holding you hostage I might consider googling some hotels."

Eddie stares at black screen of his phone. His thumb rests on top, just above the home button. The skin around his cuticles is dry and wrinkled, he thinks about moisturising more. He thinks about moisturising in general, his whole body, his face, which he hasn’t been able to do today because Richie doesn’t own any body lotion or facial moisturiser other than a tub of Aquaphor that expired when George W. Bush was still president. 

“Dude,” says Richie. “Hello?” 

Eddie looks at him sharply. “How do you have less wrinkles than me?” 

“What?” 

“Wrinkles. On your face. Why are you not incredibly wrinkly?” 

“I would say I am pretty wrinkly,” Richie says after a moment of dumbfounded silence. “Check out these babies.” 

He raises his eyebrows and his forehead crinkles. 

Eddie scoffs. “Oh, fuck off, my forehead is like a fucking barcode. That’s nothing.” 

“Is this a competition? Should we count and compare?” 

For a moment, Eddie sits in angry silence. He doesn’t know what he is angry about, whether it is the fact that despite keeping up a consistent morning-and-evening skincare routine for the past decade he still looks like shit, or if it is Richie, everything about him, how at ease he seems to be with the situation. It’s his apartment, so he has the upper hand while Eddie feels like a fish in a bucket, sharp hook piercing the roof of his mouth, out of his element. 

He rubs his eyes, too hard so when his hands come away he sees stars. With a defeated slump of his shoulders, he asks, “Do you have any weed?” 

“Like, in the apartment?” 

Eddie stares at him. “Where else could I possibly mean? The fucking treasure chest buried in your grandpa’s backyard?” 

For some reason this makes Richie laugh and Eddie tries not to be too visibly startled or worse yet, pleased. 

“I don’t have any, but my weed guy lives two floors down,” Richie tells him with an easy smile that makes Eddie feel all the more insane. He takes his phone out of the pockets of his shorts. “Lemme call him.” 

Richie’s “weed guy” is an elderly man who wears round, horn-rimmed glasses and a pink sweater vest over an ugly, canary yellow t-shirt. Bizarrely, he brushes past Richie into the apartment without so much as a hello, sits down on the sofa next to Eddie and begins to empty the contents of his massive hardshell backpack on the coffee table — an insane amount of weed distributed across at least forty, maybe fifty, ziploc bags, each labelled in illegible chicken-scratch handwriting. There must be at least half an ounce in each bag, over a pound in total. 

He introduces himself to Eddie almost as an afterthought, as though he hadn’t even noticed him up until that point. 

“Maturin,” he says and bridges the two feet gap between them to give him a one-armed hug. “Eddie, yes?” 

Eddie sits frozen in place, neither reciprocating the hug nor pulling away. It lasts at least five seconds longer than necessary, not just bordering on uncomfortable but fully tearing that wall down. Over the man’s shoulder, he shoots Richie a panicked look and is met with a wide, shit-eating grin. Eddie feels like he is being punk’d. 

“Uh,” he says when Maturin pulls away. “How do you know my name?” 

“Oh, y’know.” Maturin makes an inscrutable gesture with his hand and says _nothing else._

Eddie does not know. Eddie has no idea what the fuck is going on. 

While Eddie grapples with the situation, Richie sits down on a cushion on the floor on the opposite side of the coffee table and surveys the ziploc bags like they’re fresh produce at a market. 

He asks, “What have you got for us, Matty?” 

Maturin extends his arms in a sweeping gesture, like a genie granting a wish. “What is it you desire?” 

Richie looks at Eddie as though he is expecting him to answer the question. 

“Weed,” Eddie says when it becomes clear that Richie won’t take the hit for him. “Nothing insane.”

Maturin turns to look at him. His eyes are dark and firey on him, pinning him to the sofa like he wants to examine his soul under a microscope. Eddie squirms, a lab rat under the scalpel, feels acutely like jumping out of a moving car on the highway. 

“Sour Diesel?” Maturin finally sets him free. He picks up four of the ziploc bags, somehow finding the exact ones he wanted with practiced ease. “Tangerine Dreams? Superglue? Dream Queen?” 

Eddie relies entirely on Bev to pick whatever strain she thinks he’ll enjoy, and although she usually tells him what it is, he rarely takes note. It is the one thing he puts in his body that he doesn’t obsess about — there is such an unfathomable number of factors involved he has no control over that if he tried to regulate them somehow he would go nuts. It certainly takes some mental gymnastics and a huge amount of trust in Bev, but he has managed to stay out of his head on this one. 

As a result, he knows jack shit about weed strains and Maturin might as well have spoken gibberish. He crosses his arms over his chest. Uncrosses them again, clears his throat, and stares at the clear bags Maturin is holding up, uncomprehending. 

“Hit us with some Tangie, my dude,” Richie says into the strange, suffocating silence and raps his knuckles on the table like a dad about to make a controversial comment at a dinner party. “That’s always a good time.” 

Maturin gives Eddie a kind smile, then turns to Richie and pries open the bag. It was pungent before, but now the smell of weed is all-encompassing and disgusting. While Maturin separates a few buds from the stem and collects them in his palm, Eddie tries to breathe through his mouth. 

Richie holds out both his hands and Maturin dumps the nuggets of weed into the bowl-like shape his palms create. It is the most inconvenient way this could have been done, but Richie seems content. He cradles the weed to his chest like he is holding an injured bird. 

“Fifty bucks,” Maturin says airily as he shoves the remaining weed back into his backpack. “Cash App me, I’m saving for a pizza oven.” 

He zips up his bag and then leans over to Eddie. 

Eddie leans away, as far as the arm rest allows. 

“Keep an eye on this one,” he stage-whispers and points a wrinkly thumb in Richie’s direction. “Fragile thing. Lonely. Easy to understand, hard to get out of your system.” 

Then he gets up from the couch, shoulders his bag, and lets himself out of the apartment. 

Eddie looks at Richie, who is still holding their weed with his bare hands. “That man is insane,” he says. “You let him into your apartment? Regularly?” 

Richie laughs, loud and wild, and he unceremoniously dumps the weed onto the table. He says, "Isn't he so great?"

Eddie can think of quite a few words to describe Maturin, but 'great' is certainly not one of them.

"He is terrifying. I was sure he was going to kill me when he went in for that hug."

Richie gets up and digs through a chest of drawers in the corner. He returns to the table with a grinder, papers and a small tupperware container that he sweeps the weed into it, leaving only one nugget lying on the oak surface.

"I don't have any tobacco, is that chill?"

Eddie rubs his temples to soothe the tension headache building behind them. 

"Yeah, fine," he says tersely. Everything feels like too much. Not for the first time that day, he longs for his own apartment. Thinks of the soft dip of his sofa, the glow of his TV, his stereo. Here, he feels out of control. Too many variables, none of them predictable.

Richie is the worst one of them all.

He watches Richie grind the weed with mild curiosity, looking for just another thing to judge him for.

The muscles of Richie’s forearm move with every twist of the grinder and Eddie finds himself strangely taken by them, unable to look away. Watching Richie be confidently competent does something to him, even if it’s something as simple as rolling a joint.

He can feel every pulse of blood in his temple, an uncomfortable pressure, but the weed should help. He hopes so at least. If it doesn't, he might just tell Richie to fuck off so he can lie in bed with the curtains drawn, pitying himself for a few hours.

"You don't look like a stoner," Richie tells him conversationally while he layers the weed along the crease of the paper.

"I'm not a stoner," Eddie snaps. "I have anxiety."

"Alright, so you self-medicate. You can be a stoner and have anxiety."

Eddie crosses his legs underneath himself. He is wearing a pair of Richie's socks. They're bright pink and have donuts on them. He hates them with a passion. Every time he looks down at his feet it's like a reminder of everything that is going wrong in his life at this very moment.

"I'm not a stoner," he repeats. "I work in finance."

Richie laughs too loudly.

"Someone's defensive," he huffs and taps the grinder with his index finger, adding the rest of the weed to the paper. "You concerned with appearances, Wolf of Wall Street?"

Eddie is struck by the childish urge to throw a cushion at him. He doesn't, mainly because that might backfire and send the weed flying which would add another ten minutes or so to this whole affair.

"You're one to talk, closeted comedian Richie Tozier," he says, perhaps cruelly.

He resolutely doesn't look at Richie, then. If it hurt, he doesn't want to know.

"Hah," Richie says. "Alright."

They sit in silence. Eddie stews in something — guilt, frustration, fear.

Fear of what? He isn't sure. Feeling like a caged animal, he sinks deeper into the sofa cushions.

"We'll have to go on the fire escape," Richie says finally and taps the bottom of the joint on the table a few times. 

They bundle up, Richie in a massive winter coat he finds at the back of his wardrobe and Eddie in his parka and a scratchy, red scarf that Richie gives him. It looks like it was crocheted by someone who wasn't very good at crocheting.

It's not snowing outside but the air is biting. The wind pushes and pulls at Eddie's cheeks, and his nose starts running pretty much the minute he steps onto the fire escape.

There isn't much room so they have to stand closer together than he would like. When Richie lights the joint and takes the first toke, Eddie finds himself staring at the stubbly line of his throat, mesmerised. He knows what that skin feels like against his lips and the thought of getting his mouth back on it, on Richie, taunts the hunger that sleeps restlessly inside his chest.

Richie passes the joint to Eddie after a reasonable four drags. As he inhales, the combination of smoke and cold air shocks his system, and for the first time since he woke up that morning he feels something other than vague unease.

The street below is quiet. Piles of snow have been plowed onto the sidewalk in an attempt to clear the road, like an urban mountainscape, scaled down to fit amongst these buildings. Across the road, an old woman with blue hair is smoking a cigarette out of her window. When they make eye contact, she gives him a nod of understanding.

"So," Richie says, about halfway through the joint. "Since we're stuck together we might as well get to know each other."

Eddie turns his gaze from the street below to Richie. He doesn't know what to say so he says nothing at all, just looks at him plainly and takes another toke. The high is slowly settling into his bones, a pleasant warmth that stands in contrast with the biting wind.

Richie plows on bravely, "Look, I have way more to lose than you. You aren't famous, TMZ won't pay me for any of the gunk inside your soul."

"Gunk?" Eddie frowns at him. "There is no gunk inside my soul. Are you implying I might sell gossip about you to TMZ?"

Richie cups his hands in front of his face and breathes warmly into his palms, then rubs them together like he is trying to light a fire with the friction.

"I wouldn't call that implying," Richie says. "I very much stated that you might sell gossip about me to TMZ."

"Who the fuck do you take me for?"

Richie shrugs. "I don't know you. That's the point I'm making. I don't take you for anyone, because I have no idea who you are."

Something in Eddie softens. It could be the weed or the cold wearing him down, but either way he says, "I'm not sure you want to find out," and he passes the joint back to Richie.

"I do," Richie says. "You're a weird guy. Would love to know what's going on in there."

"Maybe you can ask Maturin for some insight into my psyche," Eddie quips. "Since he was so forthcoming with yours."

"Oh, dude, I don't think you want that. I know you think he's a freak but I swear he can see into my soul."

"Yeah," Eddie says. "That's part of the reason I think he's a freak. Where does he get off, staring at me like that?"

When Richie laughs it comes out in cloudy puffs, from the smoke and the condensation. "I think he might be a wizard. Or God."

Eddie snorts, and for some reason that makes Richie look at him curiously. He falters, suddenly self-conscious.

"Let's trade facts. I'll tell you something about myself and in return you tell me something about yourself," says Richie. "Doesn't need to be anything crazy. I'm not expecting you to tell me your darkest secrets."

"I don't have any dark secrets," Eddie mutters. And then he says, "Okay."

He feels a little insane for it. If he were sober, he would tell Richie to fuck off. He doesn't _want_ to know this guy. And he certainly doesn't want Richie to know him. It's bad enough that he has seen him naked, that he has touched his dick, that he has seen what Eddie looks like when he comes — it can't be pretty. Richie doesn't need to know anything more than that.

But the neediness he takes great care to bury every morning rears its ugly head, and he thinks, maybe it wouldn't be so bad to be the kind of person who knows things about others, the kind of person who lets others know them.

That's definitely the weed talking. Fuck this.

"Okay?" The cherry of the joint glimmers faintly as Richie takes a drag. "Alright! Cool!" There’s a manic glint in his eyes. 

Eddie tries to smile but it feels more like a grimace.

"Hm," Richie says and looks up at the grey sky. "Lemme think."

At some point it must have started snowing again but Eddie only notices now. Small, tender flakes swirl in the air around them, whipped up by the wind. 

"My favourite TV show is _The Simpsons_."

Eddie finds this incredibly unsurprising.

He only hesitates for a moment before he says, "My favourite TV show is _Twin Peaks_." 

"Oh, good taste!" Richie stubs the joint out on the railing of the fire escape. In an approximation of a French accent he says, "Shall we take zis inside, Monsieur?” 

He shuffles over to the window and opens it wide so he can climb back inside. Eddie follows and nearly dies in the process when he hits his head on the window frame.

"Shit, you okay?" Richie is holding his hands out as though he wants to help him.

Eddie, who would rather jump into oncoming traffic than show that kind of vulnerability, swats his hands away and hops off the window sill.

"Fine, thanks," he snaps.

The warmth of the apartment makes his skin tingle, an overwhelming sensation. He struggles out of his parka, rips off the scarf and drops onto the couch like a sack of potatoes. When he is high, he loses all sense of grace.

Richie sits down on the other end of the sectional, all sprawling limbs and easy smiles.

"My first kiss was with critically acclaimed horror author William Denbrough," he says when they're both settled. "At a sleepover in 1991."

"That explains that," Eddie says dryly and gestures towards the wall behind Richie, where the framed cover of _Attic Room_ by William Denbrough hangs innocuously.

Richie cranes his neck to look at it and laughs wildly. "He gave me that," he tells Eddie. "For my birthday a few years ago. He thinks he's so funny."

"You did hang it up, so it can't have been that unfunny."

"It's meta," Richie says and waves his hand. "By displaying it proudly I subverted the joke and made it funny."

Eddie can't help the sharp laugh that escapes him. He says, "Arrogant dick."

"You know it, baby," Richie chirps and winks at him.

Desperate to not linger on that Eddie quickly says, "My first kiss was acclaimed fashion designer Beverly Marsh."

Richie blinks at him, uncomprehending. "Sorry, my knowledge of the fashion world extends no further than the inside of my wardrobe."

"She’s famous. Internationally, too. They love her in Europe. In, uh, Milan? About 80% of my clothes are 'designed by Marsh'," Eddie tells him, doing air-quotes around the last three words.

"So are you bisexual?"

The question confuses Eddie. His tongue feels numb and his brain struggles to keep up with the conversation. Everything around him seems to be bathed in a golden light. It must be the lamp by the sofa. Through the slats of the blinds he can see that the snow outside is gleaming white.

"What?" he asks, delayed.

Richie repeats, "Are you bi?"

"Are you asking because my clothes are designer?"

Richie makes a strange noise, like a confused bear. He says, "No. I'm asking because your first kiss was Beverly Marsh."

"Oh," Eddie says and shakes his head. "I'm gay. I was thirteen, bro. She was my friend."

Richie nods slowly. "I definitely had a crush on Bill. I've had crushes on most of my friends." After a moment of consideration he adds, "My guy friends, at least. And they all turned out to be into dudes, just not into me."

That's actually a little tragic. There's a melancholic tilt to the slope of his mouth.

Eddie frowns. He doesn't want to feel anything but indifference towards this guy, but the more they talk the more difficult it becomes to cling on to that. 

This was never meant to be anything more than a one night stand. Why couldn't Richie be an asshole? Why did he have to be a sad guy with nice eyes and crooked teeth who wants to cuddle after they fuck and make Eddie breakfast in the morning?

"It's your turn," he says to Richie. "Give me another fact."

Richie brightens considerably, as though he is excited at the very idea of sharing things with Eddie.

_Fuck._

"I like to cook," Richie tells him. "I'm not very good at multitasking so nothing too complicated, but it always makes me feel like a bit of an adult. And I'm good at it. I’m the American Gordon Ramsay." 

He stretches his legs out so his feet nearly touch Eddie's. They are each occupying one section of the corner sofa, Richie on the longer one on account of him being someone who sprawls, like the world is too small for him.

Eddie hums. "I hate it," he offers. "I hate that I have to do it every day. If I could eat take-away for the rest of my life, I would."

"What, really? Dude, that fucking sucks. I thought you were a health freak?" Richie raises his eyebrows at him. "You wanna live off oily Chinese noodles forever?"

"What the hell? You can get healthy food from restaurants! It's 2018, they do gluten free protein wraps and salads now."

Richie mimes gagging. "Disgusting. Fuck that."

"I'm just busy," Eddie snaps. "There's only so many hours in the day. We can't all be comedians with ghostwriters."

There's a brief pause and Eddie thinks Richie might take offence, but then he laughs and says, "Oh, dude, fair enough. I really don't do shit. I left the house twice this week, and one of those times was to meet you."

Eddie raises an eyebrow at that. "What was the other time?"

That flusters Richie for some reason. "Uh," he says intelligently. "Met a different guy."

"Wow. You told me you don't do this much." Eddie fights against a pang of _something_ , deep within his gut. Irritation, maybe? He feels a little lied to.

"I don't, not really," Richie says and scratches the back of his head. "I used to, back in college. One night stands were kind of my thing but then I caught chlamydia of some forty year old sad-sack and vowed to only sleep with people I'm actually dating."

He laughs in that self-deprecating way he has, like he is apologising for something. Eddie is uncomfortably close to feeling sympathy for him. Tries to remind himself that sympathy is a good, normal human thing to feel and he shouldn't fight it.

Richie continues, "I tried the dating thing for about fifteen years, gave up and downloaded Grindr so now I'm the forty year old sad-sack, just without the chlamydia. You're the fifth guy I've met up with but the first one to actually come home with me."

"Oh," Eddie says because he can't think of anything else. Some part of him, a shrivelled up part that hasn't seen sun or water in years, longs to reciprocate. To share something, anything that might make Richie feel like less of a loser. To say, _hey, I'm pathetic too. Don't worry about it._

He bites the inside of his cheek, frowning at the coffee table, and then says, "I'm divorced."

The words burn in his throat like smoke.

Richie leans over to pat his shin in the world's most awkward show of comfort. He says, "Aw, dude. Is it recent?"

"It was finalised a few months ago."

"Ah," Richie nods. Like that means something. "So you're living it up now, huh? Throwing yourself into some post-divorce sexcapades?"

Eddie's face burns with mortification as he glares at Richie. "Fuck off," he snaps. "Don't be such an asshole.”

There is genuine confusion in Richie's voice when he says, "Huh?"

"I know it was bad, alright? I was there. You don't need to make fun of me."

"Dude," Richie says, his eyes huge behind his glasses. "What? I'm not making fun of you. And what was bad? Last night? I already told you it was good, why the fuck would I lie to you?"

"I don't know," Eddie says. "Why would anyone lie? To spare my ego. To make yourself feel better. Could be anything, I don't know you."

"Yeah, you don't," Richie says, sounding a little crabby for the first time in the past 24 hours. "And I'm telling you I wouldn't lie to spare your ego. If you're a bad lay, I would let you know."

Eddie lets out a frustrated breath. "I lasted _four minutes_ ," he bites.

"Well, you wanna fucking cry about it?" Richie looks amused. "I think you are overestimating my standards. You're hot, you fucked me and let me come on your abs. That is all I really want, for my part. I'm sorry if your performance somehow disappointed you but I really don't have any complaints.

Eddie crosses his arms "What about the part where I nearly knocked you out?"

"Hm, what about the part where I kneed you in the balls?" Richie shoots back.

"I haven't forgiven you for that," Eddie says wryly. "But alright. I get your point. Can we stop talking about this and go back to sharing mundane things about our lives?"

As an act of mercy, Richie lets him change the topic. He tells Eddie, "The first album I ever bought was _Louder Than Bombs_ by The Smiths."

Eddie snorts. "Not much of a surprise."

"What does that mean? Have you got me all figured out, Eds?" Richie grins at him. "Did you see my face at The Falcon and think 'wow, I bet this dude listened to _Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now_ when he was eleven and he thought he was Morrisey'?"

"Yes," Eddie says. "I saw it written on the label of your try-hard leather jacket."

"Oh my God." Richie throws himself back against the sofa cushions and giggles, high-pitched and strangely cute. "You clocked me. You're such an asshole."

Possessed by the high and Richie's giddiness, Eddie laughs. Quietly at first, then with his whole body.

"Do you want to know what the first album I ever bought was?"

Richie nods, still giggling.

"It was _Pinkerton_. I was twenty."

"You didn't own any music until you were twenty?"

"My mom—" Eddie starts and then he thinks, no, what the fuck? _No._ Absolutely not going there. "Yeah, I didn't own any music until I was twenty. Laugh it up.” 

And Richie doesn’t laugh, but he does give him a tight smile. 

"I have a sister. Chris," Richie says, moving on. Letting Eddie get away with it. "You got any siblings?"

Eddie shakes his head. "Not by blood. I have Bev."

"So you guys grew up together?"

"Yes." He gets up off the couch and walks over to Richie's collection of vinyls. "Do you have any Bruce Springsteen?"

"Absolutely fucking not, no."

"Why the hell not?"

"His music is for office grunts having a midlife crisis and yearning for freedom," Richie says.

As an office grunt currently having a midlife crisis and yearning for freedom, Eddie is deeply offended. He doesn't give Richie the satisfaction of admitting to it and instead busies himself with finding some overlap in their music taste.

Mostly Richie's collection seems to be entirely random. There's ska, grime, synthpop, Vivaldi's _Four Seasons_ performed by Felix Ayo, a lot of Fleetwood Mac, chamber pop, garage punk, britpop. A lot of artists Eddie has never heard of, a few that he has.

He settles for _Four Seasons_ because he thinks it's kind of funny. When the record player crackles and the first few notes of _Spring_ drift through the intimate space of the living room, Richie laughs loudly behind him. 

Eddie sits back down on the couch. He feels like he is floating. It's a nice high, relaxing but upbeat, unlike those ones that drag you down and make you feel like you've sunk so deep you might never get back out. He feels significantly calmer than before.

The world looks like a better place, now. Even the room around him seems warmer and brighter, like something out of a movie, as though someone had carefully dressed it to convey a feeling of home, of lived-in. Richie seems to fit into it perfectly, like it has been designed around him.

Spending the weekend doesn't seem like such a bad thing anymore. But in the back of Eddie's head is a warning. _This cannot be anything._

At 6pm that evening Eddie goes for a walk. The high has worn off, leaving him restless and tense, and the sharing frankly got too much for him. He knows too much about Richie now, knows his dad is a dentist and yet he refused to wear braces, knows that he grew up in Maine, not very far from where Eddie and Bev grew up at all, knows that he dropped out of college after a year and that he likes romantic comedies. But perhaps worst of all, he knows the way Richie's nose scrunches up when he laughs, how he hides genuine hurt beneath jokes, how he scratches the back of his head when he's nervous like an amateur actor doing the bare minimum to convey the feeling.

He never wanted to know any of this. Stupidly, he thinks of Maturin's words: _Easy to understand, hard to get out of your system_

Eddie doesn't want Richie in his system. He does not want to understand him. All these little things about him forge a bear trap around Eddie's ankle that claws at him, that digs into his flesh. 

There's a reason he avoids getting to know people: He struggles to forget them when they're gone. When he was twelve years old, the year before he met Bev, a boy moved into the house next door. They spent the summer together, Dwayne and him, chasing each other through the streets and crawling through the underbrush of the small forest adjunct to the nearby park. Much to Sonia Kaspbrak's great dismay, Eddie came home with scraped knees and muddy clothes more often than not.

Dwayne moved away not six months later, leaving Eddie behind with an unkept promise of letters and visits. Theirs was a short story, but to this day Eddie remembers he liked the grape flavoured Runts the most, remembers that he worried about disappointing his father and that he was scared of spiders, but only the ones with large bodies and thick legs. He could hold a daddy longlegs in the palm of his hand, unafraid. 

These things worm themselves under his skin and stay there for years, for decades. He soaks them up like a sponge but can never wring them out. So the more he knows about Richie, the more space he will take up inside of him for what could be the rest of Eddie's life.

It's dark outside, which depresses him a great deal because it means he didn't catch a single ray of sunshine all day. The vitamin D supplements he takes in the winter are in his bathroom cupboard at home, somewhere behind the Omega-3 Fish Oil capsules and a tube of antiseptic cream. Once again, he wishes that he were in his apartment, wearing his favourite thread-bare hoodie and bamboo-fibre lounge pants and watching reruns on TV.

It becomes immediately clear to him when he steps out onto the pavement that there is a reason he isn't home right now, and that is the mountainous piles of snow on the pavement and the chaotic sprawl of muddy ice all along the road.

Across the street, a woman is walking her dog, a tiny thing with red, fuzzy fur. The dog is wearing booties and a knitted sweater, which makes Eddie reconsider his stance on pets for a vulnerable moment. Then the dog stops to take a shit with shaky hind legs and he remembers that he would have to pick up poop every single day and carry it around in a little plastic bag until he finds a garbage can.

Eddie does not want to be someone who carries bags of poop around for any amount of time, no matter how cute his hypothetical dog might look in a little sweater.

He stomps through the thick snow, flattened in parts by footsteps and resident's attempts at shovelling it away. It is freezing cold, the kind of cold that seeps into your bones and stays with you for hours and hours, and maybe this was a bad idea but the fresh air helps to clear his head, if only a little.

He considers calling Bev but his fingers might fall off if he takes them out of his pockets. Underestimating frostbite will get you nowhere. And besides, she is probably busy with her _hot architect girlfriend_ , being in love and having great sex if he can take her word for it. So he stays alone with his thoughts, just trying to get them in any kind of order.

By the time he reaches the block that The Falcon is on his toes are beginning to go numb in his shoes. He turns back around, feeling disheartened. Maybe some part of him considered this a test run to see if he could make it to Bay Ridge on foot. If his toes are numb after ten minutes of walking then he doesn't want to imagine what parts of him will have lost feeling by the time he makes it home. 

He turns on his heels and walks back towards Richie's apartment building. It starts snowing again halfway there, gently at first but picking up pace by the minute, and Eddie finds himself overcome with a feeling of longing. This sort of weather brings with it the idea of togetherness, of spending time inside with someone you love and looking out at the world from your place by the window.

Myra had never much cared for it and he had never much cared for her, so it wasn't something they did together. But it was something he did with Bev, back in those early years in New York. The first time that either of them had a home where they could feel warmth without suffocating. They would push Bev's bed up against the window and drink steaming coffee from chipped mugs while the snow covered the streets of Brooklyn down below.

It isn't Bev he longs for now and it isn't quite Richie. But, dangerously, Eddie thinks that it could be him if he lets it happen.

Richie makes vegetable curry from scratch while Eddie sits at the breakfast bar and tries to read an ebook on his phone's Kindle app. Every few sentences he finds himself looking up at Richie, at his wide shoulders, at the easy way he moves around the kitchen and makes a mess on the counter. Richie is not the kind of person to clean up as he goes, and it stresses Eddie out extremely, but the way his ass looks in his very flattering sweatpants makes up for it.

They eat together perched on the stools at the breakfast bar and listening to Pulp on the record player. Some spiteful part of Eddie hoped that the curry would suck so that he could rub it in Richie's face, could say that maybe getting protein wraps at the gentrified-to-shit takeaway a few blocks over wasn't actually that bad of an idea, but unfortunately it tastes incredible and so he keeps his mouth shut and is quietly mad about it.

He refuses to give Richie the satisfaction of asking for the recipe. Instead, he tries to remember the ingredients he watched him pull out of the cupboards and makes a mental note of any he can think of. 

He gets as far as a tin of chopped tomatoes, some red curry paste, coriander seeds and coconut milk before giving up. 

"Have you ever seen _Fight Club?"_ Richie asks while drying up the freshly washed plate Eddie just set down on the draining board.

"No, I am an alien from outer space or a newborn baby." Eddie flicks soapy water at Richie, some of it catching on his stubbly chin. "Of course I've seen _Fight Club_ . Who the fuck hasn't seen _Fight Club_?"

"I'm sure there are plenty of people who haven't seen _Fight Club_ ," Richie tells him and puts the plate in the cupboard to his right. "So do you like _Fight Club?"_

Eddie shrugs. He scrubs at a particularly stubborn bit of dried up curry on the side of the saucepan with a frown. "I don't think you can really like _Fight Club_ ," he says.

Richie lets out something that could be a laugh if you squint. "What the fuck is that supposed to mean? I like _Fight Club_. It's a good movie."

"It's a cultural phenomenon." Eddie rinses off the saucepan, now free of curry. "Once it becomes that, it stops being a movie you can _enjoy."_

"I think that's bullshit," Richie says plainly. "That's the kind of thing someone who took an extra credit film studies class for one semester nineteen years ago would say."

Eddie sets the pan onto the drying rack with a little more force than necessary. Metal rattles against metal. He says, "I never took an extra credit film studies class."

"Alright." Richie snorts quietly. "So do you want to watch _Fight Club_?"

With as much feeling as he can muster, Eddie says, "Fuck no."

They watch _Fight Club_.

It takes them half an hour of nonsensical arguing to get to that point, but in the end Eddie gives in, which is incredibly out of character for him but Richie wears him down like sandpaper.

While Brad Pitt taunts Edward Norton into hitting him, Eddie texts Bev.

 **To: Bev 7:48pm** **  
** _He's making me watch Fight Club._

Not ten minutes later his phone buzzes against his thigh where it rests on the sofa.

 **From: Bev 7:57pm** **  
** _Wow, you must be in love._

 **To: Bev 7:58pm** **  
** _I hope you fall into a hole._

 **From: Bev 7:58pm** **  
** _Love you, sugar plum._

Eddie turns his phone off in a fit of embarrassment-fuelled rage and tries to pay attention to the movie. He really doesn't know how he feels about _Fight Club,_ or how he feels about the fact that Richie managed to talk him into watching it.

He generally considers himself someone who is difficult to influence. Peer pressure was never much of an issue for him and he was content doing his own thing. He also liked to stick to his guns about things like movie choices, opinions on hairstyles, clothes and interior design, unless the fashion advice came from Beverly Marsh.

But here he is, watching _Fight Club._ And here Richie is, watching it with him. Stretched out like a lazy cat along the long section of the sofa while Eddie sits cross-legged and a little stiff in his corner — _his_ corner? Does he have some sort of ownership over this corner?

_Always so fanciful, Sonia's boy. Too much like his father, bad blood._

With an angry twist of his mouth he thinks, _Oh, shut the fuck up, Aunt Margaret._

At some point Richie leans a little closer to him and asks, "Who is hotter, Norton or Brad?"

"What the fuck?" Eddie sputters. "Is that a serious question? Edward Norton or _Brad Pitt?"_

"I mean, yeah." Richie gives him a quizzical look. "Why, is there an obvious answer?"

"Yes, there is." Unbelievable. How is this a question?” Eddie looks at the ceiling for strength. "It's obviously Brad fucking Pitt."

"Brad is fucking Pitt? Damn, I thought they were just friends. That's kind of sexy."

Eddie resolutely does not laugh, because it's not a funny joke. Instead he says, "No wonder you have ghost writers," which seems to put a damper on Richie's dopey smile, but only for a split second. The mask is back sooner than he can blink.

"Hey, now," Richie says loudly. "No need to get prickly. Your secret love for Brad Pitt is safe with me."

"It's not—" Eddie shakes his head. "It's not a _secret love._ He is objectively the right choice. Edward Norton looks like an overworked rat in a suit."

"Hm, yeah, but I'm kind of into it," Richie says and has the audacity to wink at Eddie, like there's some joke there.

The look he shoots Richie is murderous. "Are you saying I look like an overworked rat in a suit?"

But Richie just laughs easily. "I guess, yeah."

"Fuck off and die," Eddie snaps. "You're so fucking rude. Is this your idea of flirting?"

"Oh, you want me to flirt with you, baby? You should have said! I've been holding back all day."

That makes Eddie pause. _Really?_ Why would Richie be holding back? Does he _want_ to flirt with Eddie? Has he been thinking about it?

He doesn't know how seriously to take this attempt at a joke.

"Uh," he says. "Right. Either way, you need to work on your technique."

Richie makes sad eyes at him, like a stupid puppy, and says, "I'll try my best. Anything for you, my love."

Eddie stares stoically ahead at the TV and refuses to engage.

By the time Edward Norton makes it to the top of the skyscraper, Richie and Eddie have drifted closer on the couch so there is barely any space between them. Eddie doesn't know how it happened, but at some point Richie must have shifted _just so_ and now his thigh is against Eddie's knee, a warm pressure.

It takes everything Eddie has in him to not overthink it. Several times, he considers excusing himself to go to the bathroom, his strategy from last night, so that he can return and sit back down at a reasonable distance. At least three feet between them, ideally. Potentially four, if he can get away with it.

But he feels tied to the couch in some strange way. Thinks that if he gets up now he might never sit again. And Richie radiates warmth next to him, reassuring where last night he made him nervous. Eddie considers if he can blame the weed for this, still, or if five hours since the joint might render that excuse void.

"The first time you watched it, how long did it take you to figure out that it was the same dude?" Richie asks and shifts almost imperceptibly closer.

Oh, he thinks he's _so_ slick. Eddie finds himself sweating profusely under the soft, grey hoodie he is wearing. One of Richie's. 

"I watched it in 1999," Eddie says dryly. "I barely remember anything about the year 1999, least of all my feelings and thought processes when watching _Fight Club."_

"Aw." Richie nudges Eddie with his elbow, very gently. "I measure my life in movies and my reactions to them, so that is incomprehensible to me."

Eddie rolls his eyes and he doesn't nudge him back. He says, "Yeah, that makes sense."

"Ouch," Richie laughs and clutches his heart. "You wound me."

"That wasn't a dig."

Richie hums. "Alright."

The opening notes of _Where is My Mind_ begins to play. When the city blows up outside the windows of the skyscraper, Richie drapes an arm over the backrest of the sofa behind him. It is an unmistakable gesture, an invitation.

Eddie feels hot all over. This hasn't even been a possibility, in his mind. When he thought about his weekend stuck at Richie's apartment he never once factored Richie potentially wanting to have sex again into the equation. He has been too caught up in his own little pity party about what a bad fuck he is, and despite the fact Richie has tried to reassure him that last night was genuinely not that bad, it never occurred to him that he might want a repeat.

But then, Eddie is the first guy to come home with Richie in a while. He isn't quite sure he believes it but if that is the case then it would make sense. Eddie understands being horny and having no one to lend a helping hand. Arguably, that is the only reason he is in this stupid fucking situation in the first place. He was horny and he wanted someone to lend a hand. Richie was the hand.

So Eddie is the hand now. If Richie is angling for what he thinks he is angling for, that is.

Something low in his belly tightens, a hot flicker. It wouldn't be so bad to be able to touch Richie again. Properly, flat palms against his bare skin, and his mouth against his throat, his chest, his inner thigh.

Eddie looks at Richie out of the corner of his eyes. His gaze is trained on the TV with almost stubborn intensity and his jaw is tense, like it is taking a lot of willpower for him to watch the final scenes of _Fight Club._

Eddie considers his options. He could ignore Richie's clear invitation and go to bed after the film is done — he would only need to get through a few minutes. Alternatively, he could shift his weight and lean against Richie's side. He could put his hand on Richie's thigh, maybe stroke his thumb along the inseam of his jeans. He could tilt his face up, asking to be kissed.

It isn't much of a choice, in the end. Every cell of his body longs for Richie — not in a romantic way, but in the way that he is kind of horny and thinks that Richie is unbearably hot — and the only real option is to give in.

So Eddie shifts his weight. And Eddie puts his hand on Richie's thigh, he strokes his thumb along the inseam of his jeans. And Eddie tilts his head up and asks to be kissed.

Richie kisses him like he has been waiting for it. His hand, warm and large, comes up to grasp Eddie's chin and there's a heat behind it immediately.

In an intensely embarrassing moment of weakness, Eddie's stomach swoops. Like a boy with a crush he flushes bright red, so he wraps an arm around Richie's shoulder to ensure that he won't pull back and see him _blushing._ But Richie is so warm against him, so big in all the best ways, and Eddie thinks that if he were standing up he might feel weak in the knees.

This is fucking stupid. His dick was literally inside of Richie less than 24 hours ago. If anything this should be less nerve-wracking, since the biggest hurdle has already been overcome.

With a determined frown he pushes closer to Richie and runs his hand up his thigh, coming to rest close to his crotch in what he hopes is a suggestive gesture.

Richie makes an interested noise, a little _hm,_ and he grasps Eddie's hip with his free hand. Though that might not have been his intention Eddie takes this as an invitation, pushes himself up to his knees and climbs into Richie's lap.

 _Confident,_ he thinks. He can be confident. Eddie Kaspbrak is not a fucking coward.

And he has a lot to make up to after last night, even if Richie claims that it was good.

"Oh, hey," Richie laughs against his mouth and wraps his arm around Eddie's waist. "Eager."

It's a little mortifying, being called out like that. Yes, he is, but does Richie need to _say it?_ Eddie bites Richie's lower lip in retaliation but the bastard just seems to like it, making a pleased little sound.

Behind him the end credit score of the movie plays, grounding him in some sort of reality. In this new position Eddie is reminded of the night before when Richie was more of a stranger than he is now. When he didn't know his favourite movie or the shape of his ass. When he didn't know that he could cook curry from scratch and how relaxed and confident he looks doing it.

God, this is such a stupid fucking idea. Eddie will have to scrub Richie off his skin for a long time after this, to get rid of the ghost of his hands and his laugh. Weeks, probably, maybe months. He still thinks about Whiskey Mark in those late-night, vulnerable moments, wonders if it could have been anything if Eddie had just been a little less prickly. Thinks that he wouldn't have wanted it to be anything — the guy was about as interesting as a stale piece of bread dipped in water, and he kissed like he had never heard of the concept before — so why can't he stop circling back to it when he lies alone at night?

If Whiskey Mark can stick with him for months and months, Eddie fears that he might never get the taste of Richie's skin out of his mouth.

But when Richie takes hold of Eddie's ass and rocks his hips up to grind against him, Eddie drops head head back and moans. When Richie pulls at the hem of his hoodie, Eddie lifts his arms up and lets Richie pull it over his head, followed by his shirt. And when Richie turns them over and pushes him down onto the couch — gently, so gently that it makes Eddie want to scream — Eddie opens his legs and lets Richie settle in between them.

"Fuck," Richie groans into the crook of Eddie's neck. "You're so fucking hot."

The weight of him should be overwhelming, should feel suffocating, but instead it is just comforting. His body is a wall between Eddie and the rest of the world, shielding him from it. Eddie might not need to be shielded, has spent too much of his life fighting not to be, but that doesn't mean that it isn't nice to feel protected.

 _Fucking hell._ He focuses on thinking horny thoughts instead of indulging in this incredibly revealing vulnerability. It isn't particularly difficult when Richie is rolling his hips down into Eddie's and sucking marks into the skin just below where his collar would sit.

He paws at Richie's back and tries to push up his shirt. Once he gets his hands underneath he scratches blunt nails down the skin of his back, which draws a fascinating moan from deep within Richie's chest. So he does it again, leaving long marks, and then he pushes under the waistband of Richie's sweatpants to get a handful of his ass.

"Oh," Richie gasps and comes up to kiss Eddie again. It's messy, all tongue and teeth. Eddie arches his back to get closer to him.

This is better than last night, somehow. It's not surprising considering that last night was _shit_ and anything would be an improvement, but Eddie feels blurry with how badly he wants Richie, like condensation collecting on an open window in winter, and with every movement of Richie's hips he feels more and more insane.

It's almost too much. To want so intensely, to feel stupid with it.

He tries to rationalise it into something he can understand. This is just what being horny does to your brain, and last night he was too preoccupied with anxiety to fully grasp it. It's normal to want things. It's normal to want this man, to feel frantic underneath him, to twitch with every warm, wet swipe of his tongue.

But it doesn't feel very normal. In fact, Eddie feels like a crazy person. He thinks that this is what it might be like to snort cocaine. His heart races, a rabbitlike beat against his ribs, and sweat pools in the dips of his collarbones. If Richie weren't covering him wholly, the air around them might feel cool against his skin.

Richie pushes himself up onto his hands and then sits back to take his shirt off. This gives Eddie something like three seconds to breathe, to try and collect his thoughts, but then Richie is back on him and everything dissolves into static.

There is too much bare skin. Eddie is on the verge of a panic attack, except not really. Except he is just painfully hard and Richie is just painfully hot on top of him, both physically and metaphorically.

"What do you want?" Richie asks, barely a whisper against the skin of Eddie's cheek.

"I want—" Eddie takes a deep, gulping breath and struggles to think. "I want— Fuck, I want you to get off me."

Richie immediately pushes back up and almost falls off the couch in his haste to do as he is told. He catches himself on the side of the sofa and ends up awkwardly kneeling between Eddie's legs, his torso bent at a strange angle.

"Why— Are you okay? Was that too much? I was just trying to, uh," Richie babbles. "I thought you wanted to, I didn't mean to, do you want a minute? Do you want me to leave you alone?"

He looks fucked up. His hair is messy, strands of it in his eyes, his lips are red and his face is flushed. In the position he is in, his stomach and chest look perfect, hairy and rounded, his shoulders ridiculously wide. He looks like Eddie built his dream man out of clay and the figure was possessed by the spirit of a shit comedian.

"I'm fine," Eddie says, voice strangled. "It was a bit much. I don't know. Should we really— I mean, is this a good idea?"

"Uh." Richie blinks at him in confusion. "You mean fucking?"

Eddie clears his throat and nods.

"I mean, we don't have to do anything you don't want to do. But I don't see how it's a bad idea," Richie says slowly. "That's why you're here, isn't it?"

"I'm here because there is a blizzard and I can't go home."

Richie sighs and looks up at the ceiling, exposing the long line of his throat. Eddie wants to kiss him senseless.

"Alright, I get it, you'd rather be anywhere but here. Fine. Get some new material." Richie rolls his shoulders like fighting through some tension. "But I mean that's why you came back here. Because you wanted to fuck me, right?"

Every part of Eddie is screaming at him to hide under the sofa and never come out again. He should have just let Richie suffocate him with his warm, steady weight.

Instead he says, "I guess."

"So why not do it again? I don't see how it's a bad idea."

 _Because I will never shake you, if I do this,_ Eddie wants to say. 

He doesn't know how to explain to a normal human being that this might make him fall in love. The reason he doesn't want romance is not because he is incapable of it, or because he doesn't like the idea, but because it's too dangerous for someone like Eddie, the kind of man who is always searching for something, who thinks he can find it in other people. If he lets himself look too closely at Richie he might never be able to leave.

He says nothing of the sort. Instead he pushes himself into an upright position and reaches for the waistband of Richie's sweatpants. He gets onto his knees, leans into the heat simmering in his belly, and kisses Richie, open-mouthed and wanting.

Richie lets Eddie push down his sweatpants. He lets Eddie lick into his mouth, lets him cup the thick outline of his dick through his briefs, and after a moment's hesitation he presses the heel of his hand against Eddie's crotch in return.

Eddie lets out a shaky breath against Richie's lips and his hips jerk forwards on their own accord, into the welcome pressure of Richie's hand.

"Yeah, you want this?" Richie murmurs and presses a questioning kiss to the corner of Eddie's mouth.

In lieu of a response, Eddie slides his hand into Richie's briefs and wraps his fingers around his hard cock. It's warm and smooth against his palm, a hot weight, and Richie moans when he gives it an experimental tug.

This is easy. It's not much different from getting himself off, except at a different angle. Richie eagerly bucks his hips and all Eddie has to do is to indulge him, to jerk him off with precise movements of his wrist, thumb across the exposed head and spread precum across it to make Richie twitch against him.

Eventually Richie seems to remember that Eddie has a dick, too, and so he makes quick work of the too-large sweatpants and his briefs, pushing both down to Eddie's thighs. He kisses down Eddie's jaw and along his throat, nips the skin of his shoulder, and takes his dick into his hand.

Eddie whines pathetically and buries his face in Richie's hair. He is less frantically horny now, more of a low buzz under his skin, and he is glad for it. If this is him at normal levels of arousal, he can't imagine what kind of embarrassing shit the Eddie of ten minutes ago would have done when Richie touched his dick.

"Hey, Eds," Richie says against the crook of his neck where he is mouthing at the skin. When he speaks, Eddie can feel his lips moving.

"Don't call me that," Eddie sighs. It would probably have sounded more intimidating if it weren't for the way Richie squeezed the base of his cock just so at the exact moment he spoke.

Richie asks, "Can I suck your dick?"

Eddie chokes on his own spit.

"That a no?" Richie pulls back to look at him as Eddie coughs, his eyebrows drawn together in concern. His hand has stilled and so has Eddie's, which means they are just sort of holding each other's dicks. It's a little absurd.

"No, it's— Fuck, it's a yes. Jesus," Eddie sputters.

Richie positively beams at him, like the cat that got the cream, and Eddie flushes from the tips of his ears down to his navel.

"Sweet," Richie says brightly and he pulls his hand out of Eddie's pants. "Wanna take those off?"

His face burning, Eddie sits back against the sofa cushions and lifts his hips up so he can pull down his sweatpants, then the briefs. His feet briefly get tangled in them so he has to bend down to free himself, but finally he is naked and flustered next to Richie.

"Oh, man," says Richie. He brings a hesitant hand to Eddie's stomach and runs his fingers along the lines of his abs, then down to his thigh, tracing the slight bulge of the muscle there. It's mainly from running and the squats he insists on doing at the gym. Richie seems quite taken by the sight.

"Are you just going to stare at me?"

"Hm, impatient," Richie laughs. "And a little rude. I like that in a man."

"I'd like you better on your knees."

_Oh, where the fuck did that come from?_

"Holy shit." Richie grips Eddie's thigh, fingers digging into the flesh of it, and he licks his lips. "That can be arranged."

And he slides off the couch and into the space between Eddie's legs. He blindly reaches for one of the throw pillows and puts it underneath his knees, his gaze trained firmly on Eddie's cock.

Eddie wants to cover his face with both hands and die.

When Richie licks his lips he has to look away for fear that he might disintegrate on the spot if he looks at him for one more second. He stares up at the ceiling, the swirling patterns of thick, white paint, and he takes deep breaths while Richie settles between his knees.

Eddie doesn't know what to do with his hands or with any of him, really. He clenches his fists uselessly and looks back down at Richie, at the dark mess of his hair, slightly frizzy but with an adorable wave to it. He thinks that with the right conditioner, styling products and a little bit of care Richie might have beautiful curls.

There's a glint in Richie's eyes when he looks up at him and then he wraps his hand around the base of Eddie's cock and drags the flat of his tongue along the underside of it.

Eddie breathes out shakily. This is his first blowjob in something like eight years so when Richie takes him into his mouth halfway and hollows his cheeks, Eddie nearly passes the fuck out. He moans and his hand flies to Richie's shoulder and grips it tightly, a little too tightly to be anything but revealing. He is relieved to find that Richie doesn't seem to care. He doesn't pull back to make fun of him, doesn't look up and wink or something else stupid, he just takes him deeper until Eddie feels the back of his throat.

"Jesus," he hisses.

The wet heat of Richie's mouth is almost too much — he feels it low in his belly, in his toes. Richie seems confident in what he is doing, barely stopping to settle before he pulls back to curl his tongue around the head, and it makes Eddie feel insane.

When Richie sinks back down onto him, Eddie brings his hand up to his mouth and bites down on the knuckle of his thumb, stifling a moan. He already knows he isn't going to last very long, and it's going to be just as embarrassing as it was last night.

Richie pulls off him with wet pop, his lips slick with spit and his eyes glazed over. He looks up at him like he is the one who is close to the edge, his chest heaving with needy pants.

He asks, "Can you— With your hand?" Instead of explaining, he reaches out to take hold of Eddie's wrist and guides his hand from his shoulder to his head. "Hold on?"

He looks like he is embarrassed to ask and Eddie doesn't want him to be.

"Yes," he says and curls his fingers in Richie's hair. It's surprisingly soft. When he gives it a light tug, Richie's eyes flutter shut in pleasure.

Eddie can work with this. He doesn’t personally see the appeal at all but he wants this to be good for Richie and it's nice to have something to do with his hands. So he tightens his hold a fraction just to see if Richie likes it, and he does, he really does.

With a breathy moan, Richie takes him back into his mouth and begins working him in earnest, bobbing his head and hollowing his cheeks each time he comes up. Like this is old news for him. Like he's done this countless times, knows exactly the right pace and how to curl his tongue.

Eddie sobs into his hand and bucks his hips. On the floor, Richie groans and pushes his hand into his sweatpants to jerk himself off.

"Fuck, holy shit," Eddie gasps, and he thinks about how much he should hate this. Not really, not the pleasure of it, but how sloppy it is, how intimate. He thinks he may never be this close to another person again, thinks he doesn't want to. Not if it's someone else. 

For a moment it's too much. He pulls Richie's hair a little harder, instinctively trying to drag him away but Richie doesn't understand it as that. Instead he looks at Eddie through his lashes, wet with tears, and he speeds up the rhythm of his hand on his own cock.

The line between overwhelmed and aroused is blurry, and Eddie swims along it.

"You're so good, ah—" he pants and drags his palm across his face. "Fuck, Richie, shit, you're— I'm gonna—"

He wants to warn Richie, to give him a chance to pull off, but his orgasm takes him by surprise and so all he can do is bite down on his lip with a whine and arch his back as he comes into Richie's mouth.

"Fuck, sorry," he moans when Richie swallows around him and then pulls back.

Richie's voice is unsteady when he says, "Are you kidding? That was so fucking hot," and he drops his head on Eddie's bare thigh, mouthing wetly at the skin there while he continues to jerk himself off inside his sweatpants.

"Do you want me to—" Eddie starts but Richie shakes his head frantically and, with a desperate moan he bites down on Eddie's thigh and shudders through his own release.

"Fuck," he says and sits back down on his heels. "Holy shit. Sorry about biting you."

Eddie looks down at him, a little dazed. He watches as Richie gets to his feet ungracefully and takes off his stained sweatpants. He wipes himself down with them, which is incredibly disgusting, and then he collapses onto the sofa next to him with a pleased sigh. 

Eddie is still reeling from having his soul sucked out through his dick so when Richie throws an arm across his chest he just lays there, unable to move even if he wanted to.

He isn't sure he wants to.

"That was hot," Richie says, sounding almost smug.

Eddie hums. "I guess," he mumbles, on another plane of reality entirely.

"You _guess?_ Wow. See if I ever suck your dick again, you diva." Richie runs his fingertips along Eddie's side, from the dip above his hipbone to the valleys of his ribs and back down. If he were entirely with it, Eddie would smack his hand away or he would squirm out from underneath the weight of Richie's arm.

Once again, he isn't sure he wants to.

He might never move again. Maybe he will fossilise, become one with the sofa. In a thousand years, archeologists will dig him up and display his body in a museum. At the bottom of the vitrine a plaque, golden letters on black, 'The Post-Coital Man, 21st Century'.

Eddie thinks that buried underneath the haze inside his mind are words he could say. Words he _should_ say, probably. Like _thank you_ and _it was hot, yeah_ and _I am not getting out of this alive._ He stays quiet.

When Richie snakes his hand underneath Eddie's body and pulls him close, nuzzles into his hair, Eddie lets him do it. He lays his head on Richie's chest and squeezes his eyes shut.

Quietly, within the privacy of his thoughts, he thinks, _Who are you, Richie Tozier? Get out of my head._

He lets it happen for a few minutes. When Richie presses his lips delicately to the crown of his head, Eddie pretends not to notice.

But the haze clears and it leaves behind a vague feeling of panic, that familiar face. He can't let this happen. It might not mean anything to Richie but Eddie may never recover and the longer they lay pressed alongside each other the more it starts to feel like _something._

This cannot be something. There is nowhere for it to go.

His stomach in knots, Eddie peels himself out of Richie's warm, sweaty embrace.

Richie makes a confused noise, a little _'hmpf?'_

"I'm going to take a shower," Eddie says with a resolute nod. As if to confirm he is making the right decision.

"Oh," Richie says and blinks at him blearily. His glasses are smudged, his eyes big and a little red behind them. "Want me to join?" He winks at Eddie.

"Um," Eddie clears his throat. "Not really."

He watches Richie's face do some interesting gymnastics to try and hide the hurt.

"Right, sure." Richie makes a vague gesture with his hand. "Well, you know where everything is."

Eddie gives him a tight smile and gets to his feet.

Things are somehow better and worse under the warm spray of the shower.

Better because without Richie close by, without the warmth of his body against him, having rational thoughts is a much more achievable goal.

Worse because his rational thoughts are telling him that he fucked up by letting it happen again. He shouldn't have pressed his ear against Richie's chest, shouldn't have counted each thump of his heart. He shouldn't have let Richie trace the lines of his body with a broad hand.

An obsession takes shape somewhere deep within him, in the empty caverns of his chest. Every flash of a smile and every joke they share it transforms, slowly turning into something palpable.

Eddie lathers his body with soap and rinses off the scent of him. He holds his breath while he washes his hair with that awful coconut shampoo for the second time that day. He stays under the spray until his skin feels raw from the heat and the tips of his fingers are wrinkly.

He brushes his teeth, because he might as well, using his lovely, handy emergency toothbrush and Richie's toothpaste. The mint stings his nose. He flosses, because Richie actually owns floss. He rinses his mouth with Listerine Ultraclean and spits into the sink. He watches the blue liquid swirl around the drain, then disappear.

There isn't anything else he can do, because his skincare products are at home. He scrubs his fingernails with the nail brush on the side of the sink, just because.

When he turns the tap off the quiet of the room envelops him. Through the wall he hears the TV, a quiet hum of conversation. He wonders if Richie has gotten dressed yet. Imagines him in his sweatpants and nothing else, bare-chested and cozy on the large couch. The memory of last night circles around him, of Richie looking so small and so very lonely.

The tiles of the bathroom floor are cold against the soles of his feet. They're terracotta red, standing in an odd contrast with the pink bath mat by the shower. Eddie looks down and flexes his toes. He really needs to get a pedicure soon, or at the very least trim his nails himself. He wonders if Richie owns a nail file.

Richie doesn't suit 'lonely', not in the way that Eddie does. He has the personality of someone who should be perpetually surrounded by friends who understand him and laugh at his jokes. He should have people to hug, people to drink with, people to call when he feels down.

They are fundamentally different. Eddie looks like a cartoonist's interpretation of a divorced workaholic who spends evenings on the couch, while Richie seems to have been put on this earth solely to show others what "just like, a fun guy" might look like. It’s not even worth the comparison. 

So no, Richie doesn't suit lonely. And Eddie has no idea what to do about that because he cannot be one of the people Richie hugs, drinks with or calls when he feels down, but he knows that he wants to stop being a little bitch about this situation.

He imagines what Bev would advise him to do. He could call her and ask, but he can only embarrass himself in front of her so many times in a 24-hour period and the limit has definitely been met, if not exceeded.

 _Just talk to him,_ she would say. _He probably thinks you hate him._

"I don't hate him," Eddie mutters and makes eye contact with his reflection. He looks sad. He looks tired. "I hate myself."

_Christ, Eddie. Stop being such a little bitch._

She can be mean like that. Sometimes callous. Never cruel, but shaped by a life that tried to kill her.

He pulls Richie's t-shirt over his head and scrubs a hand through his damp, towel-dried hair. Normally he would have already slathered it in gel at this point, but Richie fucking Tozier does not own any gel. Richie owns _texturising clay._ Completely hopeless for Eddie's hair type, and Richie's for that matter.

For the nth time that day, he thinks wistfully about his apartment. There are so many things he relies on without thinking much about it, noticing the absence more than the presence, so being left with nothing but some expired Aquaphor, coconut shampoo and _texturising clay_ is a nightmare for him.

In an hour when it has dried, his hair will poof up into frizzy, awful waves, so thick that it defies gravity. There is a reason he goes through a litre of gel a month. He wishes he was the sort of person to wear a hat indoors, just to avoid having to look at himself in the mirror.

"Okay," he says to himself and he almost laughs. It comes out as a grunt, something twisted in the back of his throat. He smacks himself on the cheeks to regain some sort of composure, then heads back into the living room.

Richie is right where he left him, except a little less naked. He is wearing a fresh pair of sweatpants and he is watching Takeshi's Castle on TV or rather: he is ignoring Takeshi's Castle on TV in favour of his phone. 

"Sorry," Eddie says before he can chicken out.

Richie looks up, a little spooked.

"For running out on you."

"Oh," Richie says. He lowers the volume on the TV and puts his phone face down on the couch. "It's cool, dude."

Eddie shifts from one foot to the other and crosses his arms for lack of something else to do. He says, "You should get higher standards. _Dude_."

Richie laughs. "My standards are fine. Do you wanna sit down?"

"No." Eddie bites the inside of his cheek. "Yes, fine."

He sits down gingerly on the edge of the couch. His gaze flicks to the TV, just in time for him to watch a woman face plant into a puddle. In his lap, he squeezes his left hand with his right, massages the webbing between his thumb and index finger. On screen, a man collides with a wall.

Without looking away, Eddie asks, "Do you think you're ever gonna come out?” 

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Richie shift and cross his arms.

"What?"

 _Back off_ , Eddie thinks. _Let him breathe._

"You know," he says and he does not look at Richie. "Your persona. The straight guy shtick. The girlfriend stories. Does it get old?"

Richie is quiet for a moment, too long to not be loaded.

"It's fine," he says eventually, strangely controlled. Unlike any tone Eddie has heard from him before. "It does the job."

Eddie carefully does not look at him when he says, "Sounds fucking miserable."

"Yeah? Well, I think wearing a suit and tie and kissing banker ass on the reg sounds fucking miserable, so," Richie shoots back, his voice sharp.

"Jesus," Eddie says and finally looks over at him. "You don't even know what I fucking do."

"Whatever it is, does it fulfil you?" Richie gives him a sardonic smile. "Is this what widdle Eddie dreamed of?"

"It's stable," Eddie snaps. "It's a good job. Good money. I can be honest about who I am."

"Oh, you tell your boss that on the weekends you like to get stoned and fuck men? You gonna tell him about me?"

Eddie sidesteps. "I don't lie."

"Whatever, dude." Richie grabs his beer and takes a swig. It could be innocent but Eddie feels it like a bite — _leave me the fuck alone._ "We can't all be normal."

"Normal? What the fuck are you talking about?"

"Y'know, following the path. Coming out young, living your true life, dancing on the fucking company float at the Pride Parade." Richie gestures towards Eddie with the bottom of his bottle. "Some of us are just closeted. Some of us will die closeted. Get over yourself."

"I know that." Eddie wants to get up and pace the length of the room. He wants to go for an hour-long run. "I'm _divorced."_

Richie gives him a strange look. "Well, congrats on getting someone to marry you."

"I was married for twelve years," Eddie says plainly. 

"Show-off."

"To a woman."

Richie's forehead wrinkles with a frown. "Oh," he says.

"But yeah, I wouldn't know anything about being in the closet."

"Alright, so chill out with the fucking life advice, Ann Landers," Richie replies. He sounds tired, deflated. He looks it, too.

"I'm not in the public eye," Eddie says. "You are. It could mean something to people if you came out."

"I don't give a shit." Richie takes a sip of beer, then another. "I'm not a role model. I'm just an attention whore who self-flagellates on stage for laughs. Except it's not even self-flagellation because someone else wrote the jokes, so I guess it's just flagellation."

Eddie pulls his knees up to his chest and wraps his arms around his shins. He stares at the TV, where a contestant takes an optimistic leap and gets crushed between two foam rolling pins.

"Fine," he says after a moment. "I think your act would probably be funnier if you wrote your own shit."

"You think you're the first person to have this conversation with me?" Richie laughs dryly. "I have friends. They're all a little gay, even the one who is married to a woman. It's always this: You could be the person we all needed as kids, Richie. Why won't you come out, Richie? Why don't you write your own material, Richie? You're better than this, Richie."

He sets his beer bottle on the coffee table with a clunk and turns to Eddie. He crosses his legs.

"Here's the kicker: I'm really not." His smile is genuine this time, but it looks all wrong. "There is no better version of me buried under all the bullshit. I _am_ the bullshit."

Eddie doesn't know if that is true. He can't claim any sort of ownership over Richie. They're strangers, nothing more. 

"Okay," he says. "I think the bullshit is fine."

Richie gives him a quizzical look and Eddie turns away. 

There’s a moment of quiet in which they both watch a woman fail miserably at balancing on a beam. She topples over within seconds and crashed into the water below. 

Richie says, "You want me to roll another joint?"

It's nearly 11pm, but Eddie is nowhere near tired. He could use something to get him out of this miserable spiral.

"Please," he says.

They smoke on the fire escape and Eddie lets Richie fill the silence, as he is chronically inclined to do. There are things he would like to say, things he would like to ask Richie, but he feels socially exhausted. Despite going until about 4pm without speaking to him, Eddie has said more to Richie today than he has said to anyone but Bev in months. 

So he stands and listens, bundled up in his parka and the scratchy, red scarf Richie gave him, and every now and then he interjects something along the lines of _you're an idiot_ or _what the fuck, bro, Princess Diane died in 1997._

The high settles around him like a warm embrace. By the time Richie stubs the joint out on the railing Eddie can feel every intake of breath like a storm within him and his mouth is unbelievably dry.

"Do you have any drinks?" he asks Richie once they're back inside. "Like orange juice."

"Uh, yeah," Richie says slowly. "I have cranberry juice, white wine, Fanta Lemon or Pepsi."

Eddie laughs helplessly, a breathless giggle, and he flops down on his corner of the couch.

"Cranberry juice? Do you have a UTI?"

Richie stands above him and grins. "Can a guy not just enjoy a cold, fresh glass of cranberry juice for non-UTI reasons?"

"Nah," Eddie says. "Absolutely not. Can I have some Fanta Lemon? I've never had Fanta Lemon."

"You've never— Oh, dude, you're in for a treat." Richie goes into the kitchen with a bounce in his step, like he is just that excited about introducing Eddie to this drink.

Eddie laughs him out of the room. 

When Richie comes back, he presents him with the Fanta like it's a fucking twenty dollar cocktail, complete with a little pink umbrella, tiny straw, and a slice of lemon on the rim of the glass.

"For you, good Sir," he says in an approximation of a British accent. "I hope it pleases your delicate taste buds."

"Dumbass." Eddie takes a sip. He instantly remembers that he brushed his teeth less than half an hour ago, because it is the worst thing he has ever tasted. He says, "This is the worst thing I have ever tasted."

Richie gapes at him. "What the fuck is wrong with you? Are you an alien? Are you from outer fuckin' space?"

"Terrible for your teeth, too," Eddie adds and sets the glass down on the coffee table. "Acidic and sugary. This is going to fuck up your shit."

"Dude, I can't believe you don't like Fanta Lemon," Richie groans and sits down on the couch, not all too far from Eddie. "I suck your dick, and for what? You don't even like Fanta Lemon. There is no future for us."

There's a brief pause while Eddie tries to make sense of what he just said. It's a joke, he reminds himself. Richie is joking. There is no future for them regardless, but in this hypothetical _joke_ scenario Richie constructed there could have been one, if not for the fact that Eddie doesn't like Fanta Lemon.

"Ha ha," he says dryly. "There was never any future for us to begin with. Your favourite TV show is _The Simpsons_."

Richie nudges Eddie's thigh with his foot and laughs. "It's good, man. You can't tell me _The Simpsons_ is a bad show, there's no way."

"I'm not going to argue with you on this," Eddie says plainly. "Because I am very tired and I can't be fucked, not because I wouldn't win."

"Sure," Richie drawls. "You keep telling yourself that, babe."

"I'm not telling myself anything. I am making a factually correct statement, asshole."

"Mhm. Of course." Richie takes the glass of Fanta and slurps it obnoxiously through the tiny straw.

When Eddie grimaces, Richie just slurps harder.

"Shut the fuck up," Eddie snaps. "Just act like a normal person for a second."

"Sorry, I can't hear you over this delicious beverage I'm enjoying." He makes a show of licking his lips and smacking them together.

Eddie would love to say that it isn't somewhat enticing, but he isn't a fucking liar. He slides further down the sofa cushions until he is closer to lying down than he is to sitting up. Exhaustion hits him like a tonne of bricks, square in the face. His bones ache with it, heavy as they are.

"I should go to bed," he tells Richie but doesn't move.

"Sure, man," says Richie.

When Eddie looks over at him, there is a strange sadness to him. In the soft, warm light of the floor lamp by the sofa, dimmed to an easy glow, Richie's glasses glint and his shoulders slump beneath the weight of the fucking world or whatever it is he carries with him.

He imagines him curled up on the sofa under the dark cover of night, his long limbs folded, and he finds the thought unbearable.

"We could share," says Eddie. The tips of his ears tingle, blood-swarmed. "The bed."

Richie drops his head over to one side so he can look at Eddie, his cheek squished against the sofa cushion and his glasses sat askew on the bridge of his nose. His lips are parted in surprise and there is a slight wrinkle between his eyebrows.

"Really?" he asks. "It's fine, honestly. I don't mind the couch." Like he doesn't want to impose in his own home.

Eddie feels acutely guilty for making him sleep here in the first place.

"You're an old man," Eddie says with a small smile. "You're going to fuck up your back sleeping on this thing. I can't be responsible for that."

Richie grins widely and his teeth gleam white in the low light, a little crooked and incredibly charming. He pushes himself into an upright position and says, "Do I have to remind you that we're the same age?"

"I exercise regularly," Eddie says primly.

"Again with that shit," Richie scoffs and runs a hand through his messy hair. "I don't need exercise. My body is a renewable resource."

"That is patently untrue. I can provide scientific proof for this if you need it."

"I'm not like other girls." Richie pretends to flick long hair over his shoulders and blows on imaginary, drying nail polish.

"Hm, you're really not. You're too hairy."

"Eh, you like it."

"I guess so," Eddie shrugs and gets up off the couch with stiff knees. He makes a mental note to do some extensive stretching tomorrow when he hopefully feels more like a person and less like a crumpled up piece of paper.

He looks down at Richie who is perched on the edge of the couch and asks, "You coming to bed?" His stomach swoops nervously.

"Yes," Richie says with the faintest of smiles.

Eddie brushes his teeth for the second time that night. His emergency toothbrush has never seen this much action before.

He sends Bev a goodnight text while he is perched on the edge of the bathtub, toothpaste foam in the corners of his mouth, and chewing on the head of his toothbrush.

 **To: Bev 12:16am** **  
** _Life is so fucking stupid. I am stupid._

 **To: Bev 12:16am** **  
** _Goodnight, Bev. Love you._

She doesn't reply immediately and he didn't expect her to but he checks his phone several times between then and the time he traipses into the kitchen to get a glass of water anyways.

When he gets back to the bedroom, Richie has undressed down to his shorts. So this might have been a tactical error.

He stands in the doorway, the arches of his feet shaped around the threshold, and he stares at him for an embarrassing moment. There isn't a convenient excuse for it, and Richie is very much looking right back at him.

Eddie averts his gaze with great difficulty and drops it to the floor.

"Oh, please, don't hold back," Richie says, his voice endlessly smug. "Feel free to stare. It's real flattering, baby."

"Fuck off," Eddie snaps. "Just get into bed."

"Mm," Richie hums. "Bossy. That's hot."

And he slides back the covers with a giddy laugh. It's pigtail pulling, that's what it is. Eddie wants to sink into the fucking floor.

He checks his phone again, still nothing. Bev is either busy having amazing sex with her sexy, buff girlfriend that Eddie knows too much about, or she is asleep. The chances of her being busy with anything else this Saturday night are slim to none.

"Are you sexting someone else?" Richie props his head up on one hand, elbow digging into the mattress, and he gives Eddie an amused look.

"I don't sext people," Eddie mutters as he sits down on the edge of the bed.

He sets the glass of water down on the bedside table and then takes off the stupid, donut-patterned socks Richie lent him and throws them into the laundry basket in the corner of the room. One goes in, the other bounces off the side and onto the floor. With a sigh, Eddie goes to pick it up.

"I have evidence on my phone that proves you are lying," Richie says.

Eddie drops the sock into the laundry basket. "I have never sexted anyone else."

Richie snorts. "Really? Then why was it so fucking hot?"

"I took a creative writing class in college." Eddie slides under the covers, keeping a reasonable distance between him and Richie. "I don't know why. I was incredibly shit at it and have never had a creative thought in my life."

"You're just a natural sexter, I guess," Richie says and rolls onto his side to look at Eddie.

Eddie stares resolutely up at the ceiling, though he isn't sure why. Sometimes he just likes to be needlessly difficult, some petulant urge inside of him that he didn't get to follow much as a kid.

With a wry twist of his lips, he asks, "Didn't I ask you if you were cold when you told me you were half-naked?"

The bed shakes with Richie's quiet laughter. "You did! Oh, man, that was sweet. No one has ever cared enough to ask."

It's strange to see it in that light, rather than as just another manifestation of his various neuroses. Eddie blinks blearily and finally looks at Richie.

"I'm glad you have heating," he says. "If only for my sake. Would hate to be stuck here if you didn't."

"I thought you hated being stuck here anyway, heating or not?"

 _I don't hate it_ , Eddie thinks. _I don't hate you._

He says, "The heating helps," and he feels quietly guilty for it. 

When Richie takes off his glasses and turns off the lamp on the bedside table, Eddie feels wide awake. Gone is the exhaustion from earlier — every breath he takes feels startlingly conscious. As his eyes adjust to the darkness of the room, he can see more and more of Richie. He can make out the stubble on his cheek, the swoop of his hair where it falls into his face, can see the lovely shape of his shoulder, his arm on top of the cover.

"Night, Spaghetti," Richie says into the quiet.

"Fuck no," Eddie snaps. "Absolutely not. No way."

"Eddie Spaghetti."

"Eat shit."

"But it works so well," Richie sighs. "Don't be a hater."

"I've lived my entire life as a hater. I'm not about to stop now."

Although he can't see the exact shape of Richie's smile, he can see the way his cheek rounds, backlit by the low light coming through the window.

"You're cute," Richie says.

Eddie jabs his index finger into the soft flesh of Richie's chest, just above the nipple, and he says, "Fuck off."

Richie catches his wrist with one hand and tugs him closer with an unknown gentleness. The grip is loose and Eddie could easily pull away if he wanted to but he doesn't, he doesn’t. Instead, he shifts forward. 

His palm comes to rest at the centre of Richie's chest, right on his sternum. To one side, he can feel the faint thump of his heart.

"Thanks for sharing," Richie says quietly. "The bed, I mean."

Eddie rubs circles into the dark hair curling on Richie's chest. He says, just as quietly, "It's your bed."

"Hm, yeah."

When Richie puts his arm around Eddie's waist, it is with such hesitancy that it comes damn close to reverence. It's dangerous thinking, that. There are lines that cannot blur. Eddie is a big fan of lines, of managing expectations via a resolute drawing of chalk on the ground. And when rain washes them away, the only option is to redraw them.

He shifts closer to Richie, drawn in by the warmth of his embrace, and he rests his forehead in the crook of his neck. Richie's hand is warm on the bare skin of his back, fingers splayed out like he is holding the entirety of Eddie in his palm. 

_Tomorrow,_ he thinks. He'll check on his lines tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come hang out with me on twitter at [@reesefinchs](https://twitter.com/reesefinchs) if you like :)


	3. PART III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this took longer than I thought it would, huh? Basically, I started a postgrad degree and severely overestimated how much I would be able to write once the semester started. 
> 
> Big thank you to Lynne for reading the ending and reassuring me it wasn't terrible. She's my favourite clown in this whole town. 
> 
> Chapter-specific content warnings:  
> Recreational drug use, mentions of homophobia, mentions of parental abuse (Bev's dad & Eddie's mom).

Eddie wakes up to the sound of soft snoring in his ear and an all encompassing heat around him. It's nice for about five seconds and then he wants to actively die, so he wriggles out from underneath Richie's heavy arm and gives him a gentle push backwards to put some distance between them.

"Whuah?" Richie wheezes, halfway through a snore. He blinks and his eyes look strangely soft without the glasses.

"Just me," Eddie says, feeling incredibly awkward with nowhere to put his limbs or his energy.

"Oh." Richie sighs and rubs at his eyes with the back of his hand. "Eds."

"Eddie," he corrects.

"Eds," Richie repeats, and then he clumsily cups the side of Eddie's face with one hand and leans in to press a kiss to his lips. He misses at first and gets more cheek than mouth, blind as a bat without his glasses, so he adjusts and kisses him properly.

There's a blissful moment in which Eddie allows himself to melt into it, working on instinct rather than rational thought, and he even goes so far as to lick Richie's lower lip despite the morning breath he could never bear with Myra. 

Then he pulls back like he's been stung. Wide-eyed, he stares at Richie and is met with artless confusion.

"It's early," Eddie says quietly. "Go back to sleep."

"A'right," Richie murmurs and he nuzzles into the pillow. He pulls the covers up to his chin. "Night."

Eddie slips out of bed and digs through the pile of clothes he picked out of Richie’s closet yesterday. Mostly old t-shirts that he thought might fit, and a notably soft orange hoodie with frayed sleeves and a faded lion printed on the front.

He picks up one of the shirts and a fresh pair of underwear. It's slightly too large for him but it's clean and that's all that matters.

In the bathroom, he gets dressed and splashes water on his face. He longs for his morning routine, feels unsettled without giving himself that moment to wake up, but being kissed within a few minutes of being awake threw him off his rhythm so spectacularly that not even doing ten push-ups could save him right now.

He tugs at his hair in the mirror, combing through it with his fingers because Richie doesn't own a fucking brush. Or gel. Or anything a normal human being might own.

Just like he promised himself the night before, he checks on his lines and finds them smudged, in parts gone. Unbound by these constraints, he wonders if Richie might want to see him again. Does Richie date? He wonders what it would feel like to know that he could text him and count on a reply, to know that Richie wanted to see him, touch him, share his life; to know that he could be loved by someone like that.

His skin is dry around his mouth and in the space between his eyebrows. They are his problem areas. With combination skin, you have to expect problem areas. Particularly in a winter as harsh as this one if he doesn't take great care to moisturise his skin will become brittle and flake. It will become itchy in parts while overproducing sebum in others such as on his forehead and on his cheeks, so he has to make sure he cleanses it every morning and every night. Then a lightweight moisturiser, followed by a heavy one focused on his dry spots. Rosehip seed oil to seal in the moisture, as well as to encourage normal amounts of oil production.

The tub of Aquaphor on the shelf to the right of the sink taunts him. He stares at it with fury in his chest. It sits, unremarkable, and does not stare back.

Because it is an inanimate object.

With a resigned sigh, Eddie reaches out and grabs it. He unscrews the cap with more force than it needs, dips two fingers into it and smears it on his chin and in between his eyebrows like war paint. If this fucks up his skin he is never speaking to Richie again.

Not that he is going to continue speaking to him otherwise. Because this is still a one night stand! It's just the extended edition. The director's cut, if you will.

With slippery fingertips he rubs circles into his skin until the ointment is reduced to a sheer layer. He washes his hands thoroughly, dries them on the fresh hand towel Richie hung up for him yesterday, and then puts the lid back onto the tub of Aquaphor and places it on the shelf.

He brushes his teeth, feeling marginally better about things now that his skin is somewhat moist. He washes his armpits with warm water, dries them with the bath towel he hung up to dry after his shower yesterday, and then he sprays on some of Richie's shitty deodorant. The smell is more or less inoffensive but it's the kind that leaves residue the texture of wet powder, and just as white.

It's important to let your armpits breathe. This type of deodorant clogs your pores and can lead to overproduction of sweat. Counterproductive. He should mention this to Richie. Maybe he could convince him to buy a conditioner while he is at it, and a basic moisturiser. From the looks of it he seems to have normal to dry skin but that could be the weather. Seasonal changes are normal. A light moisturiser will likely be enough to start with, in combination with a gentle cleanser. Maybe Cetaphil, or Cerave.

He will have to ask his dermatologist for advice for Richie's skin type next time he sees her.

Or not, since he is never going to see Richie again.

Eddie makes breakfast because he isn't sure when Richie will be up, and he gets a headache if he doesn't eat something within an hour of being awake. Under the watchful eyes of the frog-shaped wall clock he cuts up an apple that he finds in the neglected fruit bowl on the kitchen counter, then he measures out a tablespoon of peanut butter and carefully spreads it along the side of each slice.

As he takes a bite of apple, he thinks about Richie's lips pressed dry and warm against his, not half an hour ago. Thinks about Richie asleep in bed in the room next door, and lets himself believe this could be theirs. Their apartment, their bed, their neglected fruit bowl.

_Lines, Eddie. Redraw them._

He engages in hand-to-hand combat with Richie's ancient coffee machine and loses. As he sips the watery, disgusting instant coffee he ends up with instead, courtesy of the dusty jar of Nescafe Clasico he found at the back of a cupboard, he thinks wistfully about his Breville Espresso machine in Bay Ridge, and the full-bodied taste of his freshly ground Colombian beans.

As he chews on his last bite of apple and peanut butter, he fishes his phone out of the pocket of his sweatpants. Or Richie's sweatpants, as he is constantly reminded by the way they bunch around his ankles.

He opens his chat with Bev first.

 **From: Bev 8:47am** **  
** _Are you in love with him yet?_

 **From: Bev 8:48am** **  
** _Assuming he hasn't eaten you._

Eddie wants to climb out onto the fire escape and scream until his throat is raw, or someone has called the police.

 **To: Bev 9:31am** **  
** _I hate everything you stand for._

His phone buzzes with a reply while he is washing up his singular plate and knife. He places both on the drying rack and wipes his hands on a clean dish towel.

 **From: Bev 9:35am** **  
** _That's a yes, isn't it?_

Most days, he finds comfort in the fact that there is someone in the world who knows him so thoroughly they could anticipate any shape he might take. Most days.

Right now he wishes that Bev would let him hide for once in his fucking life.

 **To: Bev 9:37am** **  
** _We had sex again._

 **From: Bev 9:37am** **  
** _Ooooooooh!! How incredibly unsurprising <3 _

**From: Bev 9:38am** **  
** _You should ask him out._

He snorts. Rolls his shoulders to relieve some of the tension, leans his elbows on the breakfast bar.

 **To: Bev 9:39am** **  
** _This isn't middle school._

 **From: Bev 9:39am** **  
** _People ask each other out past middle school, Edward. I have asked people out my entire adult life._

 **To: Bev 9:40am** **  
** _I'm not going to ask him out! This is a one night stand!_

His phone screen flashes with her contact picture, a stupid candid they laughed at for a good hour, of her mid-sneeze and her tongue out.

"Fuck, shit," Eddie hisses and declines the call in a panic. He tiptoes out of the kitchen and puts the front door on the latch before stepping out into the corridor so Richie wouldn't overhear his conversation. 

When he calls her back Bev picks up on the first ring.

"Do you think you're the first person to catch feelings after a one night stand?" she asks in lieu of a hello.

"Of course I fucking don't," he snaps. "I'm sure plenty of other people get hung up on good dick. That doesn't mean I am going to start _dating him._ "

"Why not?"

He paces the length of the corridor, from Richie's front door to the dodgy elevator and back.

"Because I am not interested in dating anyone, because he isn't interested in me beyond physical attraction, because I am a grown fucking man who can handle casual sex without falling in love," Eddie lists. "Now that this is out of the way I can have one night stands that will hopefully be less disastrous. I'm going to have great, no-strings-attached sex with a bunch of guys and it will be great. It's going to be so great, Beverly."

"I didn't quite get that," she says. "What's it going to be?"

"Great," he bites. "Fantastic. Just so awesome."

"Sure." He doesn't need to see her to know that she is looking extremely smug. "I think you're trying very hard to be something you're not."

Eddie wants to hang up on her then and there but unfortunately he isn't a child.

"It's cool that you finally got your PhD in Psychoanalysis."

Bev doesn't take the bait.

"Eddie," she says. "You have many brilliant qualities that would make you a good partner."

"Absolutely not." Although she can't see it, he shakes his head for emphasis. "We are not doing this."

"We are! We absolutely are!" she shrieks gleefully. "Listen here! Edward Kaspbrak, you are brave and intelligent and funny. You are an amazing friend. You are loyal and hardworking, you have great taste in movies, you are protective and extremely handsome."

Eddie sits down on the stairs leading up to the sixth floor and buries his face in his hands.

Bev goes on, untouched by his despair, "Like, you are so sexy, you 1940s movie star looking bitch. You are capable of so much love and you deserve to be loved back just as fiercely. Anybody would be lucky to be with you. Even if his Wikipedia page has subsections."

There is a pause, short and filled with Eddie's laboured breathing. Then he asks, "Are you done?"

"I could go on."

"Please don't," he begs. "That was enough."

"Alright."

"You're not allowed to do this again for three months now," he reminds her. "And that cost you movie veto privileges for six weeks."

"I know," Bev says with a slight laugh. "It was worth it."

He picks at a loose thread on the seam of the sweatpants, wondering how long it would take to simply unravel them. He asks, "Do you think we should just go to therapy?"

"Oh, absolutely. But why go to therapy when you can smoke weed about it instead?"

"I should go." He rubs his face, still a little greasy from the Aquaphor.

"Are you going to ask him on a date?"

"Probably not," he admits.

"Ugh." In the background, the sound of a zipper being undone, rustling, and then a faint noise. He narrows his eyes. "Are you _peeing?"_

"Yeah, you prude."

"I'm hanging up on you. I don't want to talk to you while you pee."

She laughs. "Honey, you talk to me while I pee every day."

"What the fuck?"

"I text you pretty much every time I pee."

"Well, stop that," he says, outraged.

"No. What else am I gonna do, play Candy Crush?"

"I don't care what you do while you piss, as long as I am not involved."

In the background he can hear the sound of flushing. He pinches the bridge of his nose with a sigh.

Richie gets up some thirty minutes later and makes him a filter coffee when Eddie asks. It's a step up from the instant variation but still miles from the lovely oat milk cortado Eddie's Breville Espresso machine makes.

Still, he will not turn his nose up at a cup of coffee. He cherishes it, sipping away slowly while Richie putters around the kitchen and makes breakfast. Proper breakfast, not the apple and peanut butter combo that Eddie ate an hour ago. The smell of garlic envelops him as Richie chops it with practiced ease, confident with a knife in the way Eddie has never been.

"I lived with a Filipino guy for a few years after college," Richie tells him and scrapes the finely chopped garlic into the hot butter at the bottom of the frying pan. "Ray. He was a real asshole, but he introduced me to the wonders of Sinangág so that made up for a lot of the crap he pulled."

Eddie hums into his mug, holding it with both hands to warm his palms. He asks, "Do you not worry about the smell?"

"Huh?" Richie turns to look at him over his shoulder. "You mean the garlic?"

"Yes."

With a shrug, Richie turns back to his pan and tosses the garlic and butter.

"There are worse things to smell of," he says. "Like piss. Or sweat. In a city like this, it's pretty much guaranteed that I will not be the worst smelling person in any given room."

_What's it like?_

Eddie taps his finger against the rim of his mug.

To go through life not worrying about smelling of garlic. To eat whatever you want, regardless of the consequences.

"And it's not like I don't brush my teeth," Richie continues. "I even use mouthwash."

"It's important to use mouthwash."

"So you don't smell like garlic."

"No, to minimise plaque build-up, and the risk of gum disease and inflammation in the mouth."

"Sure," Richie hums. "But mainly so you don't smell like garlic."

Eddie hides his grin behind his mug, despite the fact that Richie has his back turned to him.

As he dumps the leftover rice from last night's curry into the pan Richie says, "My dad never shut up about gum disease. He was ruthless. Imagine being seven years old and being shown black and white pictures of some fucked up gums. Scarred me for life."

Eddie snorts. There isn't really any way to explain to Richie how funny that is without elaborating on his childhood trauma.

"My mom," Eddie starts and he almost stops there. He pauses, staring down at a small dent in the wooden surface of the breakfast bar. Then he says, "She was like that about everything."

Richie stills at the stove, and he turns his head marginally as if to listen more closely. Like he cares about this, like he cares about Eddie. The thought makes him feel raw all over.

"Munchausen by proxy." Eddie sets his mug down and tugs at a bit of loose skin on his thumb. "Every time I had a sniffle, she told me it was pneumonia. That I might die. If I had a headache, she would take me to the hospital to check it wasn't a tumour."

He laughs stiffly and scrubs a hand across his face. "That's dark," he says. "Sorry. Maybe a bit too heavy for 10am."

"No, man, it's fine," Richie says quickly and then he is back in motion. He turns around to give Eddie a searching look. "You can tell me. We're past that point." 

"Uh." Eddie goes back to picking at his thumb. "She was— Shit. She was shit."

He is grateful when Richie turns back to the stove. It takes off some of the pressure. Eddie doesn't like being looked at all too much — he worries what people might see, if they catch him unaware.

It doesn't seem uncaring for Richie to turn his back. For a moment he considers this, thinks that maybe he should read it as such, for someone to look away when he opens up. But with everything he knows about Richie, with everything that has been said, he doesn't believe that Richie is uncaring. Doesn't believe that he could be, given the way he has offered up his home, his body, his company for Eddie’s taking.

"I can't blame her for everything wrong with me, but I can blame her for _most_ things wrong with me," he says wryly. "She hated that I moved to New York. Thought I was going to get rabies walking past a homeless person or something. Small town Maine doesn’t have rabies, of course.”

"Oh, Maine, no shit I’m from Derry." Richie gives him a grin over his shoulder. "Leaving that place was the only good decision I’ve ever made.”

“I’m from Sabattus. Nothing ever fucking happens in Sabattus, which is exactly why my mom moved us there. Lowest crime rate in the state.” 

His back still turned, Richie hums. “And you grew up with Bev? In the safest town in all of Maine?”

“Yup. We bonded about shit parents.” Eddie stops to consider this. “Well, it’s no comparison. Her dad— he was— I should have killed him when I had the chance.” 

“It’s not great to start life with a criminal record,” Richie points out. 

Eddie shrugs. “It would have been worth it.” 

They start a puzzle. There isn't anything else to do, or so Richie claims, although Eddie is certain that if they thought about it for more than thirty seconds they would find something more interesting than a _puzzle_ but some stupid, nerd-damaged part of him sees the Batman comic collage on the front of the box and thinks, _yes, actually, this looks fucking great._

Richie puts on a Phil Collins record, much to Eddie's dismay, and they sit next to each other on sofa cushions on the floor, the puzzle pieces spread out on a large piece of cardboard on the coffee table. Before they start, Richie takes several pictures of the set up and sends them to Stan the accountant.

"He loves this shit," Richie tells him. "He has a Twitter account where he just talks about puzzling. Every year he gets me a puzzle for my birthday and I've never completed a single one."

"Wow," Eddie says, unimpressed. "Why does he keep trying?"

"It's just a joke at this point," Richie says and tries to connect two pieces that are very clearly not meant to be. "I think it's funny. Our whole group usually does gag gifts except for Patty, who always gifts very earnest, handmade stuff. We don’t deserve her."

"Is Bill Denbrough part of this group?" Eddie asks and gestures towards the framed cover of _Attic Room._

"He sure is." There's a look in Richie's eyes that Eddie recognises, of unbridled adoration for his friends. He knows it from the way he looks at Bev, the way she looks at him, now and in childhood. "It's Stan and Patty, who are married, and Bill and Mike, who have been engaged for fifteen years."

_"Fifteen years?"_

"Mike wants to wait for the spiritual alignment of the universe with their partnership," Richie says, and it's clearly something that he mocks them for endlessly.

"Sounds like commitment issues to me." Eddie connects a corner piece with an edge piece. He can't deny the sense of satisfaction he feels as he makes an estimate for where the corner might end up once the puzzle is completed and places it on the cardboard.

"Oh, it's definitely not," Richie laughs. "They exchanged promise rings within two months of dating and moved in together after three. They have whatever the opposite of commitment issues is."

"U-hauling issues?"

"Yep, that's it."

So far, Richie has not connected any puzzle pieces successfully. He has given it a fair go, but he seems to have a knack for finding the ones that will fit together the least, so much so that Eddie has to wonder if he is doing it on purpose.

As he watches him out of the corner of his eye, their knees touching where they sit cross-legged on the floor, Eddie is gripped by the overwhelming urge to know him. To understand him. To know what it means when his head tilts just so, when he doesn't say the things he means to, to read between the lines of the things he says instead.

"Are they childhood friends?" he asks, unable to bite down the urge. "All of them?"

Richie whoops triumphantly when he manages to connect two pieces, both blue, with the very tip of the wing of a bat signal across both. He holds them up to Eddie as if to say, _hey, look! Aren't you proud?_

"Oh, well done. I'll make sure to tell your dad how well you did when he comes to pick you up," Eddie nods, his voice glib, as he connects another two pieces to the little corner he is working on.

"Dick," Richie says cheerfully. "I grew up with Bill and Mike."

Childhood sweethearts. Bill and Mike, waiting for the universe to fall into alignment. Eddie tucks that knowledge inside of him where he knows it will stay for a long, long time. 

He asks, "Stan and Patty?"

"Stan was my roommate in college," Richie tells him. "The one year I went. We dated, actually. He's part of the reason I dropped out but don't tell him I said that."

"I won't," Eddie says dryly. And how could he? He will never meet Stan. "Bad break-up?"

"We dated for five months. Then he met Patty."

It's simple, the way he says it. But within it there’s an old wound, scabbed over but never quite healed. 

"That's shit," Eddie says, trying to sound sympathetic. 

He wishes there was more he could offer than that. His fingertips are slippery with sweat as he joins the top corner piece with an edge piece. A whole side done, while Richie's efforts are currently half a bat signal and one corner piece laid disconnected at the bottom of the table.

"My ego still hasn't fully recovered." Richie gets up with an exaggerated groan and stretches. His shoulders pop audibly and Eddie grimaces. "Ugh, my joints. Sucks to be an old man, but at least I'm sexy. Would you say I'm a DILF?"

Eddie blinks up at him.

"You don't have any children," he says.

"Hey! What the fuck?" Richie leans down to cover the non-existent ears of the small, potted fern in the corner of the coffee table. "Don’t say that kind of shit around my kids."

"I think you have to have actual, human children in order to be considered a DILF."

"Ugh." Richie crosses the room and changes records. Without Phil Collins it's strangely quiet around them. No traffic noise outside, no sirens, no shouting. A silent moment. Then Richie puts on Bruno Mars and shatters the spell completely.

He whirls around to look at Eddie. "Alright, hypothetically, if I had human children would you consider me a DILF?"

Eddie snorts. "Hypothetically? Are you asking if I want to fuck you?"

"No, I'm asking if you think I'd be a DILF."

"So you are asking if I want to fuck you. Given that the only variable here is you being a father, which you're not."

"Stop nitpicking me, babe, please," Richie sighs and sits back down next to him.

Eddie hates that the pet name makes him feel hot all over. Hates that with every fibre of his being.

"If you were a dad, you'd be a DILF," he says. "Since you are currently a PILF."

"What the fuck is a PILF?"

"A person I'd like to fuck."

Richie's forehead thumps against the coffee table as he collapses into wheezing, high-pitched giggles.

With a smug smile, Eddie slots another two puzzle pieces together and places them in the general area they belong in. Privately, he thinks that he likes the sound of Richie's laugh. It's stupid and a little loud and most of the time he sounds like a goose led to the slaughter, but he finds it inexplicably charming.

He finds a lot of things about Richie inexplicably charming. Frustrating, yes, annoying, probably, too much sometimes but in the way that Eddie is also too much except Richie seems to own it. Eddie tries to bury himself while Richie digs and digs and digs.

Richie comes up for air and when he looks at Eddie he grins so wide his cheeks must hurt.

"I'm going to put this into a set," he says.

"I thought you had ghostwriters."

"Yeah, but I've been writing a little. Here and there." He does a so-so gesture with his hand and the leftover laughter drains from him. "I'll probably never perform it."

After yesterday, Eddie doesn't want to overstep again. Or he does, really, but he thinks that it might end badly. Still he wants nothing more than to overstep — all the time. It's always lines with him, chalk and thread and ink on paper, and someday it might be nice just to say _fuck it._

"Fuck it," he says. "You should. You're funny."

Richie's eyes are wide behind his glasses.

"I am? What gave you that impression?"

"Talking to you," Eddie says.

Richie smiles like it startles him. 

They leave the puzzle half-finished because Richie gets bored, and Eddie doesn't like puzzling enough to argue. When Richie suggests Pictionary, Eddie reluctantly agrees to one round.

By the fourth round, he has to admit that they are hanging out.

Not in the way they were hanging out yesterday, that tentative, skittish way, where Eddie felt perpetually like any wrong step could plunge them into an argument or worse yet, crushing silence. But instead, in the way that feels familiar. Like they have done this before countless times. Like when Eddie draws a particularly awful picture of a frog and Richie laughs so hard he gets hiccups, and it feels like they have been here before, like they will be here again.

_Hanging out._

In the way that will make Eddie miss Richie tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that.

And worse yet than the hanging out, worse than the easy conversation and the way Richie genuinely seems to think he is funny, is the _touching._ When he gets up to get a glass of water from the kitchen, Richie grabs his wrist and asks for some cranberry juice, and his thumb rubs circles into Eddie's pulse point. When he sits back down, Richie leans across him to grab the pen and his hand comes to rest on Eddie's thigh like it belongs there.

He wonders, not for the first time that weekend, what Richie actually thinks of him. Here is this uptight asshole, this _Wall Street bro,_ who smokes his weed, sleeps in his bed, and criticises his life choices. Who overstayed his welcome to such a ridiculous degree it has to be uncomfortable. Who pushes and pulls, who takes and gives very little, who says mean shit like _you're like a wind-up toy,_ and _fuck off_ when he doesn't want him to fuck off, and yet Richie seems to lap him up like a parched dog.

He wonders, also not for the first time that weekend, about the kind of people Richie must have been kicked by to make him this way.

Eddie doesn't want to be one of them. He doesn't want to leave Richie worse than he found him.

Around half past three Richie announces that they should go for a walk. 

"It's snowing," Eddie points out because it is. It has been all day, on and off, more on than off.

"Pussy," Richie says as he clears the bits of paper they had crudely drawn on off the coffee table.

Eddie says, "Bitch," and gets to his feet. "Let's fucking go."

"Am I being challenged to a fight?"

"You're being challenged to a walk."

Richie laughs and rifles through the chest of drawers in the corner of the room. With a triumphant whoop, he slams the drawer closed and holds up a red thumbtack like Eddie is meant to know its purpose.

"I'm going to treasure this," Richie tells him and then he pins the piece of paper with Eddie's poorly drawn frog to the wall, just below the framed Bruno Mars album cover.

"Oh," Eddie says, blindsided by the idea that Richie would want to hold onto some memory of this weekend. That Richie would want to hold onto a part of him, the way that he holds on to Bill Denbrough's _Attic Room,_ or the watercolour painting of a seaside town that Eddie now knows was gifted to him by his friend Patty.

"I'm going to frame it later, don't worry. Your creation will be treated with the utmost respect, good Sir."

"Right, yeah," Eddie says. "Of course. It's going to be worth a lot of money one day."

"People will be lining up in the streets just to catch a glimpse of it," Richie nods sagely.

They layer up an appropriate amount of going on a walk during a New York blizzard. On top of the t-shirt he was already wearing, Eddie pulls on his Marsh Collective sweater and one of Richie's hoodies, the sleeves of which are so long that he has to roll them up so they don't cover his hands.

He puts on his parka and Richie's scratchy, red scarf. Richie is bundled up in a thick wool sweater and a puffy winter coat, looking like the Michelin man, and over his messy hair he pulls a knitted trapper hat.

Eddie hates that he has to look at this man and admit to himself that he finds him adorable. As they trudge down the stairs of the apartment block, he finds himself glaring holes into back of Richie's head, wishing that he wasn't so perfectly constructed to get under Eddie's skin — funny and tall and broad-chested, with his big laugh and his squinty eye, the crooked teeth and the dedication to being just annoying enough to guarantee Eddie will never be able to stop thinking about him.

And now the fucking hat. It's simply too much. Eddie wants to kiss him senseless.

Outside snow is swirling in thick flakes in the air, thrown into chaos by a sharp, relentless wind. Eddie feels it biting his cheeks as soon as they step out of the front door. They walk to the end of the block, dodging piles of snow that have been shovelled by residents and leaving footprints in the fresh layer all along the sidewalk.

"So you were married," Richie says apropos of nothing, as they pass a bodega that is open despite the storm.

Eddie considers going in to see if they have hair gel but he left his wallet at home and he isn't about to ask Richie for ten bucks like a child.

"Yes," he says curtly. Trying not to invite too much of a discussion on the topic.

Richie steps in regardless, undeterred by Eddie's tone. It's like he is immune.

"How did that happen?"

"How did it _happen?"_ Eddie snorts. "We met, we dated, she talked about marriage for a year straight until I eventually caved and proposed to her."

"Right," Richie nods. "And you knew you were gay the whole time?"

"Yes."

"Huh. Did you love her?"

"Dude," Eddie says. "You wanna back off?"

"Not really," Richie says with a grin. His nose and cheeks are red from the cold and Eddie still wants to kiss him senseless. "This is like intense speed dating. We have to cover as much ground as possible."

 _"Speed dating?_ We're not dating, no matter what pace."

"Aw, shit, really? And here I thought you had a crush on me," Richie coos and then laughs obnoxiously, like it's the funniest thing he has ever said.

There's some joke here that Eddie isn't in on. Is Richie making fun of Eddie or himself? It's always difficult to tell.

"That's your ego talking," Eddie says plainly. And then, because he feels compelled to, he says, "I didn't love her. I cared about her in some way but it wasn't love."

He doesn't know if he has ever been in love. He believes that he could be given the right person and the right circumstances, he has the potential, the depth of feeling, but it just simply hasn't happened yet.

"So what made you stay?" Richie asks. "If it wasn't love or pussy."

Eddie makes a face. "Eugh. Don't say it like that."

"What? That's the only reason anyone ever stays: Love or good pussy. Or dick, of course."

"How romantic," Eddie says dryly. "Have you ever considered writing poetry?"

"Yeah, in eighth grade. It went about as well as you would expect." Richie clears his throat. _"Your lips taste like cherries / your hair is strawberry blonde / I want to eat you up / like peanuts."_

Eddie's cheeks hurt from grinning more so than from the cold. "Is that about blowjobs?"

"Yeah," Richie nods. "I wrote it for this guy, Miles. We did a group project together on the biome of Greenland because nothing gets me hot like talking about permafrost and arctic tundra. He had black hair, I just put the strawberry blonde thing in there for plausible deniability if he ever found it, and for the sake of the food metaphor."

"It's very powerful," Eddie says with a thoughtful nod. "Maybe you should consider a career change."

"Are you kidding me? Stand-up is like poetry. They're the same profession."

For a moment, Eddie thinks he has gotten away with revealing very little about his marriage because Richie seems distracted by his own peanut poetry, but then they round a corner and it seems to jog his memory. He squares his shoulders and turns to look at Eddie.

"Was she nice?"

Eddie blinks at him. "My _ex-wife?_ You're asking if she was fucking _nice?"_

"Yup."

"Nice isn't the word I would use."

"Alright," Richie says and raises his eyebrows. "So what words would you use? Give me some samples, baby."

"Anxious," says Eddie. "Over-protective. Dramatic. Middle-class."

Richie gasps. _"No!_ Not middle-class."

"Tragically middle-class."

"That sucks ass. How did you survive?"

"Barely. By the skin of my teeth."

When he laughs, Richie bumps Eddie's hand with his own. It's an innocuous gesture, one of those _could-mean-nothing,_ don't look my way kind of moves. Their pinkies touch just barely and Eddie nervously wipes his forehead with his other hand. It's damp where the falling snow has melted against it and a few strands of his hair stick to it.

His heart hammers in his chest, his throat, and he hates himself for it. Is he really so romantically starved that the mere idea of holding hands on a walk through the snow is sending him into hysterics?

Unfortunately for him, the answer is yes.

He looks at Richie out of the corner of his eye and finds him looking right back.

_Fuck._

Eddie clears his throat. Richie's face splits into a grin, like he has just figured something out and he is immensely pleased with himself.

"Hey," he says. And when his fingers brush Eddie's this time there is no denying his intentions.

Eddie looks away, embarrassed, but he intertwines his fingers with Richie's. They both had their hands in their coat pockets until now so their palms are warm against each other and Eddie's fingers slot into the space between Richie's perfectly.

For a moment, Richie seems to doubt his choice. He looks around the street as if to check for people, and _oh, right, he's fucking famous._ And closeted. This might be a concern for him. But there is no one around except for an elderly man attempting valiantly to shovel snow off the steps outside a brownstone, because no one else is insane enough to go for a walk through the whipping snow.

So Richie squares his shoulders and squeezes Eddie's hand.

"I had a shitty boyfriend once," Richie says conversationally. "Since we're airing our dirty laundry."

"Not willingly."

Richie looks at him with a droll grin. He says, "I just asked. You didn't have to tell me."

But Eddie wanted to tell him. Wants to be known by him, as mortifying as it is.

"So your shitty boyfriend," he prompts to dodge Richie's comment. "When was this?"

"I met him eight years ago, we were together for three."

There is a pause, and Eddie considers asking another question to keep Richie talking, but the thoughtful crease between Richie's eyebrows tells him he doesn't need to.

Richie says, "I did love him because I have terrible fucking taste. Stan tells me this at least once a month which is a bit of a self-roast given that I dated him in college."

Eddie wonders what Stan would have to say about him. Certainly nothing good. He wonders if there is anything he could do to get in Stan's good books, like make Richie do a shit ton of puzzles or help him with his taxes. He's an accountant, right?

Then, Eddie wonders if he is going insane.

"I wouldn't have stayed with him if I wasn't stupidly in love," Richie tells him, unconcerned with Eddie's inner turmoil about being accepted by the friends of a man he has known for less than forty-eight hours. "And I was dick sick. But he was a terrible fucking person."

"I can tell," says Eddie.

Richie gives him a disbelieving look.

"You can _tell?_ What, can you smell him on me? Are you a sniffer dog for shitty boyfriends?"

"No, asshole, I just have eyes. You let me treat you like shit and you still made me pancakes." Eddie wishes they weren't holding hands so he could gesticulate with both. "And then you sucked my dick."

The street around them is quiet, so when Richie laughs it is overwhelmingly loud.

"Stop laughing," Eddie snaps. "Your concerning lack of self-esteem is not fucking funny."

"Eds," Richie wheezes through giggles. "Please. That's— Fuck. I sucked your dick because I get off on it."

Eddie hisses, "And the pancakes? You get off on those too?"

"Yeah, providing for people is actually a huge fetish of mine."

"I bet it fucking is."

Richie pulls him closer by his hand so their shoulders bump and he stops walking. Eddie stumbles but catches himself — his core muscles and balance are great, actually, thanks to all the yoga. Richie probably would have fallen on his ass.

He really needs to have a chat with him about exercising. And conditioner. And moisturising, while they're at it. 

"Not that I don't appreciate the concern," Richie starts and he lets go of Eddie's hand so he can curl his fingers around his wrist. It's shockingly intimate. "But I'm actually not as pathetic as you seem to think."

"I don't think you're pathetic."

"Oh, good. Could've fooled me."

They stand in the middle of the pavement and they stare at each other. Snowflakes fall and melt on Richie's face, the tip of his nose and his eyelashes.

Eddie wants to pull him in by the flaps of his stupid hat and kiss him.

"Let's ignore my self-esteem issues for a second," says Richie. "And focus on the fact that your idea of our situation is fucking insane. Do you think you're a stand-in for my scummy ex-boyfriend?"

Eddie glares at him. "No, I don’t."

"Cool, because it sounds like you do."

"I just don't think I've been on my best fucking behaviour this weekend, alright?" 

Why are they still standing here? Eddie wants to walk, to move through the tension in his chest, and most of all he wants to hold Richie's hand again. That was good. He liked that bit of the walk a lot more than he likes standing here and having a conversation with too many things left unsaid.

"I hope not," Richie says, tongue-in-cheek. "If that was your best, I don't want to see your worst."

"Yeah, yeah, yuck it up," Eddie huffs. "My best isn't much better."

"I guess I'll find that out for myself."

_Will you?_

But Eddie doesn't say that. Instead he says, "I guess you will," with a defiant tension in his jaw.

It's dark outside by the time they climb out onto the black iron fire escape with a joint and mugs of coffee sitting precariously on the slanted ledge of the window. Steam rises from them and curls upwards into the cold air, the same way that the smoke from the joint curls, and with each breath puffs of condensation before them.

Richie's hair is still flat from the hat, it sticks to his forehead, and by all means it should look ridiculous, but all Eddie can think is, _holy shit, I want to kiss you._ And quieter but somehow harder to ignore: _Holy shit, I want to keep you._

Eddie has never known how to ask for things. For all that he is loud, and demanding, and altogether too much, when it comes to affection he cannot get the words out. Bev knows this, has always known without needing to hear him say it, and she has taken it upon herself to make sure he never has to ask.

Rather than having to swim through the syrup-thick fear of being like his mother, always expecting, leaving him no choice, he has always been more comfortable letting other people decide what he should want. Myra bravely shouldered this responsibility for him — she decided where he should live, what he should eat, how he should dress, when they would touch. Like his mother, she knew what he needed more so than he ever would.

He's better now, or at least he likes to think that he is. Every day he makes choices, on his own, and he trusts himself enough to know that if they turn out to be bad ones he will be able to deal with the consequences. Now, he decides where to live, what to eat, what to wear. 

Richie was just one in a long line of choices he has made in the past year and a half. One of the worse ones, or so he thought.

Here, standing on the fire escape and fogging up his glasses every time he takes a sip of coffee, illuminated by the orange light streaming through the kitchen window, Richie doesn't look like a bad decision at all.

"I really hate asking for things," Eddie tells Richie, once again overwhelmed by a desire to share. To be understood, if only a little. For someone so closed off, he sure has shown Richie a lot of himself this weekend.

Richie looks at him over the rim of his mug and takes a sip. Then he says, "Really? But you're so bossy.”

Eddie glares at him. He holds the joint between his lips and as he inhales, the smoke burns in his lungs.

He passes it back to Richie and says, "Fuck you, man."

Richie half-laughs, quiet in the cold evening. He holds up his hands, joint between his index and middle finger, and gives Eddie an apologetic look.

"Sorry, Eds. What do you wanna ask for? You can tell Uncle Richie."

Eddie wrinkles his nose in disgust. "Uncle Richie? No fucking way."

"That was creepy, right? Let me try again," Richie says and blows smoke into the air. "What's bothering you, buddy? You can tell your good pal Richie."

"I feel like I'm six years old and learning the meaning of stranger danger."

"Okay, let's bring it back." Richie very badly mimes reeling in a fish. "Seriously. Whatever it is, you can ask for it. If you want me to feed you soya yoghurt with a tiny spoon while we watch _Gilmore Girls_ , just say the word. I don't judge. We all have weird desires."

"Why the fuck would I want that? In what universe is that something I would ask you for?"

"Um, in this universe? It sounds like a great time," says Richie.

Eddie narrows his eyes at him. "Do _you_ want someone to feed you soya yoghurt with a tiny spoon while you watch _Gilmore Girls_?"

"Shit, man, I guess I do!"

"Well, I am not gonna do that."

Richie pouts and it looks ridiculous, like a bad impression of a kicked puppy.

"I thought we were asking for things," he says. "I thought this was a safe space. A place to be open about my desires."

"That doesn't change the fact I am saying no. Asking for something doesn't guarantee the answer will be yes."

And therein lies the crux of the issue. If Eddie could guarantee he won't be rejected, perhaps the asking would not be so fucking difficult.

"That's your thing, not mine. I'm telling you that no matter what it is, I'm game."

"Right," Eddie says. He takes one step closer to Richie, who is leaning against the railing of the fire escape.

Richie blinks at him, uncertain.

"Can we— Um, would you—" With a frustrated sigh, Eddie reaches out to take the mug out of Richie's hand. He turns around to place it on the window's ledge. It wobbles, and for a moment he thinks it's going to fall but it balances itself out and stays.

When he turns back around, Richie no longer looks uncertain. He looks hopeful. Understanding, in some small way.

Eddie starts, "I want—"

Richie says, "Yeah, of course," and he takes that final step to close the gap. His hand finds Eddie's face, his fingertips rest on his temple, and he ducks his head to kiss him.

So in the end, Eddie didn't have to ask. Richie knew well enough.

Not in the suffocating way, not in the way that Myra seemed to know but never quite got it right, not in the way that people superimposed their own idea of what he should be onto him. Richie kisses him because he looked at Eddie, really looked at him, and he said, _I know you. We've been here before._

Eddie wraps his arms around Richie's waist and gently pushes him back against the railing. He slides his hands underneath Richie's coat for warmth and to feel the solid expanse of his back through the material of his hoodie.

The way Richie cradles the back of Eddie's head with one large hand makes him feel like his soul is being scooped out of him with a spoon like soya yoghurt from a cup. In a romantic way, much as it pains him to admit it even to himself.

It's just a dry press of lips at first, moving softly against each other, but given how insane he feels about this fucking guy it's only logical for Eddie to lick into Richie's mouth, giving into the sharp pull in his lower abdomen. Richie lets him and he pulls him closer, his hand on the small of Eddie's back, but there is none of the urgency from last night, from the night before then.

They kiss in the way two people in love might kiss, open and curious.

At the top of the chaotic whiteboard that is Eddie's mind, a question scrawler in red marker:

What the _fuck_ are you doing?

Eddie attempts to find the answer in the bathroom, as has become a habit over the course of this weekend. It's his refuge for those moments when he is too freaked out to be able to talk to Richie without either telling him every single thought he has ever had or telling him to fuck off.

He stands under the warm spray of the shower and attempts to untangle the mess he has found himself in.

So he likes Richie an embarrassing amount. Looking back, he has liked Richie an embarrassing amount since the moment he texted him to ask if he wanted to meet up and Richie replied within something like twenty seconds, then proceeded to send two more texts because he thought he had scared Eddie off.

Sure, he also thought that Richie was annoying and a bad conversationalist but that didn't stop him from wanting so badly to impress him that he would have said yes to whatever Richie asked for that first night. But Richie hadn't asked for anything at all except to be allowed to jerk off onto Eddie's abs, which was really not a huge sacrifice on Eddie's part.

This is part of the problem. Richie seems concerned primarily with _Eddie's happiness._

That fucking sucks.

Or it doesn't, provided that Richie is actually interested in seeing him again once this blizzard is over. He might be. There are several signs that, if neatly aligned, might look something like this: Richie thinks that Eddie is attractive, Richie made Eddie breakfast (twice), Richie held Eddie's hand in the snow and kissed him on the fire escape. Richie might be interested in seeing Eddie again.

But that was never the plan, was it?

This is supposed to be the year of sleeping around and figuring out what he wants. Eddie had big plans. He was going to start going to gay bars and let random strangers take him home. He was going to find himself (sexually), use his toothbrush to its full, slutty potential, he was going to have interesting things to tell Bev. He was going to throw caution into the wind and suck some dick.

He can't fall in love with the first guy he has sex with. What is he, sixteen? That is pathetic.

And yet he wants so badly to touch him, to know him, to be someone to him.

With a groan, he thumps his forehead against the white tiles of the shower. The water washes over him and drips down his temples, down the tip of his nose. The awful coconut shampoo has long since been rinsed out of his hair and his skin is starting to feel tight from the heat.

Quietly, secretly, he dreads the morning. Soon, New York can go back to normal. But unlike the rest of the city, Eddie feels like the storm is not abating. It feels like the worst is yet to come.

They don't talk about it. In fact, they don't talk about much at all. Richie flips through the channels on TV and never quite settles anywhere long enough for Eddie to get into it. A few minutes of an infomercial. Zap. An old episode of House MD. Zap. A movie with Joe Pesci that Eddie doesn't recognise. Zap. Reruns of Judge Judy. Zap. A wildlife documentary about the Antarctic with a droning narrator. Zap.

Eddie tries to focus on the article he is reading on his phone, some investigative journalism piece about AirBnB scam listings in major cities across the globe. Every few lines his gaze slips over to Richie, to the soft lines of his face, the slope of his nose. The glint of light reflecting on his glasses.

A handful of times he finds Richie looking right back and his heart jumps in his throat. At first both of them hastily look away but the third time it happens Richie just grins and winks at him.

He asks, "See something you like?"

"Fuck off," Eddie says. And then, with an awkward delay, "Yes."

Richie laughs quietly and he scoots closer to Eddie, bridging some of the gap between them. So close that he can reach out and squeeze Eddie's thigh with his broad, warm hand.

Perhaps Eddie can be a little bold, too.

He sets down his phone on the arm of the couch and covers the hand with his own. Blood rushes in his ears. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Richie smile and takes this as encouragement. He runs his thumb along the knuckle of Richie's index finger, sinks a little lower on the couch and attempts to seem casual when he leans his head on Richie's shoulder.

"Cute," Richie says and Eddie's face burns. He gestures at the TV where Gordon Ramsay is inspecting an absolutely disgusting restaurant kitchen and yelling at the owner about it. "Are you invested in this?"

"Not really."

With his free hand, Richie changes the channel again. This time he lands back on the wildlife documentary. A polar bear rips apart a seal in a gory display of animalistic survival.

"Atmospheric," Richie says and he turns his hand so his palm faces upwards, then interlaces his fingers with Eddie's.

They should talk about it. This is something worth talking about. Sex is different, safer. It allows room for plausible deniability. Plenty of people fuck without feeling anything at all for the other person.

Holding hands while watching TV, kissing for no reason at all, those are dating things. Eddie's definition of the word may be limited, having not had much palpable experience with people he was actually attracted to, but as far as he understands it this is blurring lines.

Richie squeezes Eddie's hand and says, "I've been thinking about what you said. About how it could mean something to people if I came out."

"Mhm?" Eddie hums and looks up at him. From this angle he can't see all that much of Richie's face, just the right side of his jaw and some stubble on his cheek.

"I don't think I want it to mean anything. I wish I could do it quietly and no one would speak to me about it." Richie tugs at a loose thread at the hem of his hoodie. "I barely— There's still shit I need to figure out. The last thing I want is people looking up to me right now. Can't handle the heat."

"Like what?"

"Hm?"

"What are you figuring out?"

"Stuff, y'know? Things."

Eddie snorts. "Very concise."

"It's hard to say. I don't do this kind of shit, ever."

"What shit?"

"Like shit I wanna do."

 _Like pulling nails._ This whole conversation.

"Right," Eddie says. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

There's a pause. Richie's shoulder feels stiff against Eddie's cheek, like he is holding still for fear of what he might do otherwise. 

"You know drag?"

Taken aback, Eddie blinks.

"Like drag racing?"

"Not _cars,_ you hetero. RuPaul."

"Crossdressing?"

Richie shrugs. "If you want to call it that."

"Oh. Then yes, I guess I know drag."

"Cool."

A moment of silence as Eddie waits for Richie to say more. When it becomes clear that he won't, Eddie rolls his eyes and says, "So you want to do drag?"

"Um, maybe."

Richie's voice breaks on the _maybe._ With a start Eddie realises that this is important to him, that he is nervous about this. And he is trusting Eddie with it.

Fuck.

"I think you'd look nice." He clears his throat. "Uh, in drag. You've got— you've got nice legs. And... face."

Richie shakes with quiet laughter underneath him. "Are you okay, dude?"

"Shut the fuck up, I'm trying to be earnest."

"Oh, holy shit, quieten down everyone!" Richie pretends to bring down an imaginary audience. "Eddie is attempting _sincerity."_

"Nope, too late. It's gone. No more sincerity for you."

"Aw, no! Please come back, Wholesome Eds, I miss you. Tell me more about how hot I'd look in drag."

Eddie pokes Richie in the side and he squirms away with a small yelp.

"You'd look extremely hot in drag but that's the last time I'm going to say it."

Richie's responding laugh is giddy, bubbling out of him, and he wraps his arms around Eddie and squeezes him. It's a strange hug, overwhelmingly affectionate, and Eddie can't help but bury his face in the soft material of Richie's hoodie. He breathes him in. Richie smells faintly of weed and his aftershave, of warmth and a little of sweat.

It's probably a bad sign when someone's sweat smells appealing. Or a good sign, depending on where you are at in life. It means that some animal part of him has decided Richie would be a good mate, which is terrible, terrible news for the rest of him.

"I have make-up at the back of my closet," Richie says quietly into Eddie's hair. "I put it on sometimes just to sit around in my underwear and watch TV. That's sad, right?"

Eddie hums and turns his head so his cheek is resting on Richie's chest. "It's only sad that you don't wear it out."

"I couldn't."

"Not even to the supermarket or something? It's New York. I don't think people would care."

Richie snorts. "Believe it or not, there are homophobes in New York City."

"I know that, asshole, I just mean— You could go with someone else. Just to be safe."

 _I'll go with you,_ he doesn't say. Out of his life.

"Eds, I'm closeted. And I haven't even worn it in front of anyone. It's kind of. Uh, shame. I think?"

Eddie knows shame. Intimately. He has lived in shame. He has breathed it.

"Okay," he says quietly. "How about right now?"

"Huh?" Richie runs a hand up and down Eddie's back absentmindedly. "What do you mean?"

"You could do your make-up now. We're not leaving the house again, are we?"

Richie sucks in a sharp breath. His hand stills and his fingers curl into the folds of Eddie's shirt.

Uncertain, Eddie pulls back to look at him. "You don't have to," he says. "Just an idea."

"No, I— I want to. That would be... good." Richie's tongue darts out to wet his lips, a nervous gesture.

"Yeah?"

"I think so."

Richie's make-up collection is modest, as far as Eddie can tell. His frame of reference extends as far as Bev, who has a lot of make-up that she barely uses, and Myra, who owned three shades of the same lipstick, some mascara and peach-coloured blush she used on special occasions.

He sits on the floor with a handheld mirror, while Eddie sits across from him. Spread out in front of Richie is a selection of make-up — liquid foundation, a powder blush, mascara, a handful of brushes in varying sizes, a shimmery blue and green eyeshadow palette, black eyeliner, three different lipsticks. It's just about the extent of Richie's collection, give or take a few lipsticks.

All of Eddie's make-up knowledge comes from helping Bev out with fashion shoots in their 20s, before she could afford to shell out for professionals to do it instead of a loyal selection of her friends. He remembers some basics, like how to do winged eyeliner on someone else, how to overdraw lips without making the person look like a clown, how to fix glitter to eyelids. 

There has not been any reason for him to hold onto this knowledge in over ten years, except one time Mrs. Nair with the chickens next door asked him to help her get ready for a birthday party. Her hands shook too badly to apply a confident sweep of lipstick. Eddie sat with her at the kitchen table, her make-up bag spilled out onto the dark wood, and he held her chin still with a soft touch of his fingers as he dusted her cheeks with powder blush and lined her lips dark red.

"I'm not very good at it," Richie says as he squeezes drops of foundation onto his fingertips. He holds the mirror up to his face and looks at Eddie beyond it. "I'm going to end up looking like a drag caricature."

"Not on my watch," says Eddie. And then, in a smarmy, old Hollywood accent, "I'll make you pretty, baby."

Richie responds in his best impression of a small town Southern girl with dreams of the big screen, "Oh, will you make me a star, Mr Kaspbrak?"

"But you already are, Dorothy," Eddie continues, in the same stupid accent. "I'm just makin' sure the whole wide world knows it."

Richie laughs and nearly stabs himself in the eye trying to apply foundation in the corner.

"So I usually shave right before," he tells Eddie. "But I guess this will have to do."

Eddie watches as he pats the foundation into his skin, as he rubs at the slight stubble, the mirror held close to his face so he can see what he's doing without his glasses. The shade is a little too light for him but matches his undertones so it looks deliberate, even. It sets into a matte layer on his skin. Just below the corner of his mouth is a spot of bare skin where Richie didn't quite even it out.

"There's a bit there— Hold on."

Eddie shifts onto his knees and grabs the tube of foundation. He squeezes a small drop onto his finger, tips Richie's head back with a gentle nudge of his jaw and spreads the foundation on the bit of bare skin with a concentrated frown.

When he looks up, Richie is staring at him with glassy, unfocused eyes.

Richie whispers, "Thanks," and then clears his throat. "Uh, do you want to just do it?"

"What?"

"I'm not great at this and I usually just end up looking stupid, You could— You could do it, maybe. You said you used to do it for your friend, right? Bev?"

Eddie swallows around nothing. His throat clicks.

"Okay," he says. "Yeah. Fine. Great!"

He claps his hands together and tries to smile. He can do this, it'll be just like helping Mrs Nair.

"Cool," Richie says and opens his legs wider, as if inviting Eddie to settle between them. "Superb. Nice. Sweet. We're just saying adjectives, right?"

With slippery fingers, Eddie picks up the eyeshadow palette. He says, empathically, "Fuck off," and then picks up the smallest brush in the collection and swirls it in the shimmering blue powder.

"Close your eyes," he says and he does not look at Richie until he is certain that he has done as told. Hesitantly, a little quiet, he adds, "Thank you."

Richie grins widely but keeps his eyes closed.

There's a tremor to Eddie's hand when he lifts it. He sucks his lower lip into his mouth and bites down on it, then rests the ball of his hand on Richie's cheekbone for some stability. He brushes lightly along the eyelid, applying the first layer of colour, and Richie twitches as if surprised. Eddie can see the impression of the ball of his eye move underneath, searching blindly. For what?

_I'm right here._

"Hold still," he says when Richie exhales sharply and moves his head in the process. "Please."

He dips the brush back onto the shallow pot of eyeshadow on the palette. Swirls it around, then taps it on the edge to get rid of the excess. When he brushes over Richie's eyelid once again his hand is steady, his tremor abating with his growing confidence. The colour settles into the creases. It's a good blue, more of a turquoise, and it stands in stark contrast to the pale foundation layered on his skin.

Richie's breath is hot against the inside of Eddie's arm where he holds it steady. It comes in quiet puffs, shaky in a way that suggests some anxiety. Nonsensically, Eddie wonders if Richie can hear his pulse where it beats against the thin skin of his wrist.

When he goes on to brush turquoise along the other eyelid, Richie keeps his eyes closed and does not move. Eddie has never known him to be so still before. Even in his sleep Richie shifts and huffs, he reaches for things, for Eddie, he kicks his legs. It must be some form of submission for him to be so still now. Giving up a part of himself, or perhaps losing it without knowing. The restlessness. That undercurrent of energy.

In that moment, it seems as though the whole world stands still with him. As though nothing exists except for this space between them, the point of contact where Eddie's hand rests against Richie's cheek, the air they share, sitting so close together.

Eddie sweeps over the eyelid one more time, then pulls back and sets the small brush down on top of the make-up bag. When he looks up he expects Richie's eyes to be open, impatient as he can be, but he finds him suspended in stillness. His lips are slightly parted and pink, a contrast to the pale foundation.

He doesn't need to keep them closed, but Eddie thinks that if Richie were to watch him do this the intimacy might become unbearable.

He picks up a larger, fanned brush and the pot of blush. It's a pinkish kind of colour, not quite magenta but something softer, a little muted. He imagines Richie picking it out, imagines him circling his finger through the sampler and sweeping it across the back of his hand. Different shades to compare.

The idea does not hold up, given that Richie would have most likely ordered it online. Did he compare swatches? Or did he panic and buy the first thing he found?

Either way, it's a nice shade.

Feeling a little more certain of himself, a little less breathless, Eddie swirls the brush through the pot. Just like he had with the eyeshadow, he taps it on the edge and some excess powder lands on the floor.

"Hold still," he says again, albeit unnecessarily. It's just something to say when the silence threatens to choke him.

"Mhm," Richie hums and he tilts his head back slightly.

"Smile," he tells Richie, and he listens.

Eddie has the strange urge to praise him like a dog doing a trick. That would be patronising, right? Right.

He doesn't speak as he circles the brush along the apples of Richie's cheek, rounded by his smile. He dips back into the pot, then repeats the motion on the other side.

The colour looks even nicer on Richie's skin than it had in its pot.

Eyeliner proves to be the trickiest part. Eddie expected it to be the lipstick, which actually goes on with a few surprisingly languid movements, but when he pokes Richie in the eye with the pencil for the second time he comes close to giving up. 

“Don’t leave me hanging now, amore,” Richie says. “Almost there.” 

Eddie pokes him once more, uses some colourful language, and then manages to apply a somewhat neat line to Richie’s waterline. 

Richie blinks at him and grins. "What's the verdict, doc?"

"You look great," Eddie says and the honesty pains him a little, in the kind of way that comes from some deep-seated fear within him.

Richie's eyes are wide when he asks, "Pinky promise?"

"Will a normal, adult promise do?"

"Nope."

Eddie sighs and holds out his pinky. With a delighted grin that stretches the fresh layer of lipstick Richie hooks his pinky around his and nods.

The hand mirror lies on the floor next to the make-up bag. Eddie picks it up, passes it to Richie.

"Have a look."

There's a concerned crease between Richie's eyebrows when he takes it. It clears up when he lifts it up and catches sight of himself.

"Oh," he says quietly. He turns his head from one side to the other, bats his lashes, and purses his lips. It's sweet — like he is admiring himself or Eddie's work. Perhaps both.

Eddie hopes that it's both. Richie should be admired.

"Do you feel like a star?" he drawls, back in the smarmy Hollywood accent.

"Oh honey, you know it," Richie swoons. "You know just how to treat a sweet gal like myself."

"That's terrible," Eddie says. "You can do a better accent than that."

"I'm overwhelmed, okay?" His teeth glint flash when he grins, the pearly white brought out by the dark lipstick. Then, thoughtfully, he once again inspects himself in the mirror, purses his lips and says, "I wish I had a sequin dress.”

They end up on Richie's bed. Eddie is fuzzy on the details, overwhelmed as he is by everything about him, the make-up done by his shaky hand, the arms around his waist, palms pressed flat against his back and everywhere he can reach.

Richie trails red lipstick kisses along Eddie's jaw. In between kisses, he draws back and looks at him with heavy-lidded eyes, turquoise glitter draped across them, and all Eddie can do is look at him and feel too much.

"You've got some—" Richie presses his thumb against the corner of Eddie's mouth. "Lipstick. A lot of it, actually.”

"Yeah, of course I fucking do," Eddie says, amused.

Richie traces the shape of his grin. He says, "Man, where have you been all my life?"

"Jesus, don't—" Eddie's wide-eyed gaze lingers on the slight smudge of mascara below Richie's right eye. He says, "Don't," in soft despair, then surges forwards to kiss him.

In one swift movement Eddie pushes Richie down into the mattress and climbs on top of him. Richie makes a keening noise, arches his back and gets his hand on Eddie's ass. They kiss with their bodies entwined. Inside the arches of his ribs Eddie feels, painfully, that this might be the last time they ever touch.

The lipstick doesn't stand the test of time and desperate kisses. By the time reality catches up with Eddie as it is wont to do, red is smudged across Richie's chin, his jaw, a shadow of it on his throat where Eddie carried it.

With one hand flat on Richie's chest, his fingers splayed out against the soft cotton of his shirt, Eddie looks down at him from where he sits. He takes in the stark colour on his eyelids and his fanned lashes, painted dark, the mess of red around his mouth and the blush on his cheeks accentuated by true colour.

"You look good," he says in the sort of way one might say _I love you._

"Yeah?" Richie blinks up at him with a lazy grin.

"Yeah."

He asks, "Are you gonna do something about it?"

The implication lingers between them. _Are you gonna fuck me?_

Sweat prickles on Eddie's skin, in the dips of his collarbones and the hollow of his armpits. He curls his fingers and grasps the front of Richie's shirt as if to pull him up.

"I think I need a minute."

"Huh?"

"I need a minute," Eddie repeats and he lets go of the shirt. Feeling guilty as he has so many times today and in his life, he climbs off of Richie and sits on the edge of the bed with his fingertips on his temples. He rubs gentle circles into the tender skin.

There's a hand on the small of his back, and Richie's voice behind him: "You okay?"

"Yeah. Just—" He takes a deep breath. "Sorry, I'll be right back."

He leaves the way that he has left before, with anxiously drawn brows and without looking back.

In the kitchen he cuts up another apple into equal slices, same as he had done this morning. This time he forgoes the peanut butter because he worries himself into a spiral about the added sugar.

Just as he picks up his third slice his phone buzzes against the surface of the kitchen counter. He turns it over to check the notification.

Unexpectedly, it is not a text from Bev. The red icon of his weather app sits innocuously in the corner of his screen. He taps it twice. 

**[New York City:** Normal traffic to resume on Monday at 6:00AM EDT]

_Monday. Tomorrow._

His phone clatters against the counter when he turns it back over. He takes a sharp bite of the apple and nearly gets his tongue.

There's something pathetic about the heavy fear that grips him at the thought of leaving in the morning. Like a child, he feels homesick for a place he hasn't even left yet, (a place that's not his own.)

Eddie has spent the last eighteen months enjoying a freedom he never knew before and learning to be content by himself. There is happiness in coming home to an empty flat with no one there to make him feel small for how he lives his life. He has a routine that is entirely his own, a space to curate, and he likes it so, so much.

He likes it, goddamn it.

And yet at point over the course of the day, Eddie began to dread the solitude of his apartment. The thought of coming home, of taking off his thick coat, of setting his shoes on the shoe rack and dropping his keys onto the side with a loud jangle, there’s something wrong about it. Something sad. The noise will cut through an empty kind of silence and the door will close on the very idea of Richie.

But Eddie doesn't want to close the door on him.

He takes another melancholy bite of the apple and watches the frog-shaped clock on the wall. It's just past 9 o'clock. Through the window on the other side of the room he sees the blue glow of night, blurred by condensation on the glass.

 _Mold_ , he thinks. _That is how you get mold._

He finds himself plucking a yellow dish towel from the radiator and crossing the room. As he wipes down the glass his reflection reveals itself, scattered by droplets and blurred by the milky fog. His thick brows, permanently drawn like the curtains of an agoraphobe, the deep lines in his cheeks, the shadows around his eyes. The smear of red lipstick around his mouth where Richie kissed him, and kissed him, and kissed him. His hair sticks up at odd angles, courtesy of Richie's hands, relentlessly touching and pulling and wanting. It bothered him so much, two nights ago. Every time Richie would card his fingers through the thick, gelled strands Eddie wanted to snarl at him like a stray dog. To bite his fingers, push him away.

It seems like a distant memory now.

"Are you having an indie movie moment?"

Richie's voice tears through the quiet of the room but Eddie doesn't jump. He always knew Richie would come.

He turns around, gives him a wry smile and says, "You ruined my take."

"Oh, my bad. Cut!" Richie raises his hands in apology and nods his head at an imaginary film crew. "Sorry everyone, we'll have to go again. Take it from the top."

Eddie carefully drapes the towel over the radiator.

"You okay, dude?"

"The storm is clearing up."

When he looks at Richie he is met with an unreadable expression.

Eddie continues, "All major roads will reopen at 6am."

"That's great, man," Richie says but he doesn't sound so sure.

"Yeah, great. Fuck."

Somewhere in this space between them are the right words to say, but Eddie cannot find them. He digs into himself, into the very soil of him, and he comes up empty. After a childhood spent burying himself, there is simply not enough time in the day to excavate the fucked up remains of his feelings.

Richie, ever persistent, says, "So are you gonna tell me what's wrong or are we having a Mexican standoff in my kitchen?"

Eddie wants to move. His body thrums with energy, the kind that can only be spent by running or it will grow and grow and grow until he does something stupid, or until he self-destructs. But perhaps more than running, more than self-destructing, he wants to be understood.

"I had a straightforward idea about how this would pan out," he says finally and hoists himself up onto the kitchen counter. He presses his palms flat to the cool, smooth worktop. If he can't run, then he needs to ground himself.

"This? Grindr?"

"Yes. Well, one night stands. Sex with men. With you."

"Okay," Richie says and pushes his glasses up on the bridge of his nose. Behind the lenses, his turquoise eyeshadow is still mostly there, unlike the lipstick that ended up everywhere but his mouth. "How did you think it would go?"

"I was going to meet you, probably find you vaguely boring or unpleasant, get over the whole sex thing so I could be more confident with the next guy. I was going to leave straight after."

"You're such a romantic." With a wide, funny sort of grin, Richie leans against the wall across from Eddie. The kitchen is narrow but the space between them feels huge.

"I'm not, I know I'm not. I just wanted to have meaningless sex." Eddie curls his fingers against the kitchen worktop so his knuckles hurt. It takes everything in him not to move close to jump off the counter and run, or perhaps launch himself at Richie and kiss him.

"And now?" Richie asks, his voice careful. "What do you want now?"

Eddie takes a deep breath. His chest rattles with the phantom pain of a disease he never had. As always, his fingers twitch for his inhaler but he hasn't carried it in years.

"I don't want to leave," he says.

Without a moment's hesitation Richie replies, "You don't have to."

"I have work."

"You can come back. My door's always open."

"God, I hope it isn't. Not with that creepy old man living in the same building."

Richie drops his head against the wall behind him with a soft thunk and he laughs. Through giggles he asks, "What the fuck do you have against Matty?"

Eddie throws his hands up in despair. "He's freaky! He freaks me out!"

"Boo, you judgemental bitch."

Feeling slightly hysterical, Eddie bursts out laughing and Richie laughs with him.

Amongst it all, Eddie wonders how he has gone his whole life without knowing Richie. Like two pieces of a puzzle, he feels himself slot into place in this very kitchen, in this very home.

"Eddie."

Suddenly Richie is very close, so close that Eddie can smell the soft scent of his aftershave and the pleasant scent of make-up. They're not quite touching but Richie's hands come to rest on the counter on either side of Eddie's thighs like a suggestion.

"I really like you," says Richie.

It punches the air out of Eddie’s lungs. Like a fish on land, he opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again. Then finally he says, "I don't understand why." 

"Stop," Richie huffs. "You have this fucked up idea in your head that you are like, evil or something. Sure, I don't really get you. Not all the time. But I know you were nervous, out of your comfort zone. This was a stressful fucking situation and you've got sharp teeth."

Eddie snorts.

Richie continues, "I think we had fun though, right? I had fun."

"Of course I had fucking fun," Eddie sighs. _"Fight Club_ , weed and puzzling? What more could I want out of a weekend?"

When Richie grins, his whole face lights up. "See? This was a blast. Let's do it again some time."

"I'm not— I don't know how to do this shit."

"Weren't you like, married or something?"

"Ok, so I don't know how to do this shit with men," Eddie elaborates. "With people I am actually interested in."

Richie gasps and his eyes are wide behind his glasses. "Oh my god, do you have a crush on me?"

Eddie covers his face with both his hands and says, muffled, "Fuck off."

"I kneeeew it," Richie sing-songs and he tugs at Eddie's wrists to pull his hands away from his face. "You like me."

"No, you're the worst person I've ever met."

"You can't fool me, Eddie baby. I see right through you." What little distance there is between them seems meaningless now, as Richie nuzzles Eddie's cheek. "Your heart beats for me. I can feel it."

"Maybe I will just walk home tonight." Despite himself, Eddie wraps his arm around Richie's shoulder and pulls him close. His heart hammers in his chest, and maybe Richie really can feel it. "Four hours isn't that bad, right?"

"You'll freeze to death." Richie presses a chaste kiss to Eddie's cheekbone.

"Good." He threads his fingers through Richie's curls, silky smooth despite the appalling lack of conditioner in this apartment. "Death would be kinder."

With Richie standing between his legs now there is nothing stopping Eddie from wrapping his legs around him. If he can hide in a hug at least he won't have to look at him. Because frankly, he's not sure what he would do if he looked at Richie now. Some part of him feels like he might say something stupid like _I love you,_ or worse yet: _Be my boyfriend?_

Can you have a boyfriend at forty years old?

"Are you hungry?"

Eddie makes a muffled sound into the crook of Richie's neck.

"Is that a yes?" Richie slides his hand underneath Eddie's jumper and presses his warm palm against the bare skin of his lower back. Comforting, intimate.

Eddie is going to lose his mind.

"Yes," he mumbles.

"Stir fry?"

"Mhm."

Eddie chops garlic and onion, slices bell peppers and mushrooms, and Richie tosses them in a wok on the open flame of his gas stove, looking like a domestic wet dream with his sleeves rolled up and his make-up still mostly intact on his face, except where he has wiped the lipstick smudges away. He makes a show of it, narrating his cooking process in a confused Boston North End Italian accent while Eddie watches him and feels giddy, stupid, overwhelmed.

They eat on the couch in the living room, not half an hour later. It's not quite silence they settled into — Barbara Lewis croons from the record player's speakers, _Baby I'm yours, and I'll be yours until the sun no longer shines,_ making it something more than silence, something meaningful.

"So we could do dinner," Richie says, cutting into Barbara Lewis' performance.

Eddie looks up from wrangling a noodle into submission and frowns. "We're eating already?"

"I mean soon. At a restaurant."

Oh, Richie's asking him on a date.

"Oh," he says dumbly. Inside, the part of him that is waiting for the other shoe to drop squirms in fear.

Surely it cannot be this easy.

"It's just a thought," Richie says after a moment of silence. "We don't have to. And it will probably be shit because we can't hold hands across the table or play footsie or whatever, since there might be people around who recognise me. And I know you work a lot, I'm sure you're busy. So I get it." He clears his throat. "If you don't want to. I get it."

Richie, lining up excuses for Eddie to choose from for why he can't go. So uncertain despite their conversation in the kitchen.

Eddie will not leave him worse than he found him.

"I want to," he says. "I finish work at 5pm unless I'm doing overtime to fix other people's bullshit."

"Yeah?" Richie sounds a little breathless. "I'm always free."

"That can't be true."

"Well, I'm not on tour and not working on any new material right now. I have one gig coming up in," he turns over his phone to check the date, "two weeks. So I'm always free."

"Hm. Friday?"

"I can do Friday."

"At eight?"

"I can do eight."

Eddie looks at Richie out of the corner of his eye and finds him looking back. They both grin.

"How's my make-up?" Richie asks and waggles his eyebrows.

"Smudged," says Eddie.

"But sexy?"

Eddie clears his throat and looks away. "It's a little sexy."

"Aw, did that make you shy?"

"Fuck you."

"I can only hope."

This is not a romantic moment, not really, but when Richie shifts closer on the sofa and takes his hand in what must be a moment of bravery for him, Eddie still feels like he's in a fucking Hallmark movie.

"Maybe if you play your cards right," he says with a sly look in Richie's direction. He wonders if his hands feel as sweaty as he thinks they must feel and worries about it for all off two seconds, at which point he realises that Richie's hands are actually incredibly sweaty, too.

It's gross and a little comforting.

"So, uh, Eds," Richie starts, sounding unsure of himself.

"Hm?" Eddie attempts to eat his dinner one-handed, holding his bowl between his thighs and digging around the noodles for some shiitake mushroom.

"I don't know when I will, uh, come out. Or if I will come out. So if you mind—"

"I don't care," Eddie cuts him off quickly. "I know I made a whole deal out of it but that wasn't— It's not for _me._ I don't give a shit about that.”

He pauses, considering. Then he adds, "I do give a shit about, um, about you. Just not... You know, that bit. It's your thing. This isn't conditional."

Being earnest is like eating fucking gravel, isn't it?

"Hah," Richie huffs out a laugh. "Thanks, Eds. That's... Yeah, thanks."

Eddie squeezes his hand and Richie squeezes right back.

"Listen," he says then, apparently not finished with trying to be earnest. "I know I'm prickly but I really appreciate that you let me stay.”

"Mhm," Richie hums. "It wasn't exactly an act of selfless kindness."

"It wasn't?"

"No, dude, I didn't want you to leave."

"So you faked a blizzard?" Eddie asks wryly.

"No, the blizzard was just convenient." Richie shrugs. "But I could've mentioned and paid for at least three decent hotels within half a mile."

Eddie bites down on a smile. "Needy."

"Yeah, sue me."

He thinks about Friday night, about Richie spread out next to him with a blissed out expression, telling Eddie to get cleaned up so they can cuddle. Thinks about the hurt dashing across his face when Eddie had bristled and stung him in return.

If Richie is needy, Eddie wants to make sure that he gets what he's needing. In some other world, one where Eddie isn't chronically an asshole, or chronically awkward, he reached out that Friday night and smoothed out the crease between Richie's eyebrows with his thumb. He said, _of course I'll stay,_ without a snowstorm to force his hand and then he cleaned himself off and wrapped himself around Richie.

In this world it took a little longer. In this world Eddie wasted two days being a difficult bastard and thinking about moisturising.

And in this world Eddie sets his bowl down on the coffee table and he climbs into Richie's lap to make up for the time he wasted.

***

"That's horse shit. You're talking out of your ass, Bill."

 _"Yes,_ thank you. Some sanity at the table."

"Stanley, you fucking bore."

"Excuse me for not wanting to humour's Bill's conspiracy—"

"It's not a conspiracy, there are _studies_ —"

"Oh, there are _studies?_ There are also studies on how essential oils cure cancer, Bill, get some perspective.”

"It's the scientific method, you—"

"You wouldn't know science if it punched you in the dick."

"This is bordering on bullying."

"Yeah, Eddie lives the mean girl life."

"Shut your mouth, Beverly M—"

"Children," Bennie says and claps her hands, cutting through the arguing. "Please stop."

"Thank you, Bennie," Patty says empathically.

Below the table, Richie squeezes Eddie's hand.

It's the fifth time all eight of them have gotten together — Bev and Bennie, official now and as rosy-cheeked in love as always, Richie's friends Bill and Mike, still tragically engaged but rumour has it there may be a spring wedding, Stan the accountant and Patty, married for eight years and stupidly perfect for each other.

At this point separating them into _Eddie's friends_ and _Richie's friends_ is more of a formality than anything else. They don't get everyone together more than once a month but Eddie sees some combination of them several times a week. Stan works a thirty minute walk from Eddie's office so once or twice a week they meet halfway and complain about their respective coworkers. Mike and Bill have somehow roped him into a fortnightly Dungeons and Dragons night that he still pretends to hate three months in. Recently, they have started having dinner at Patty and Stan's place every Saturday like real adults.

Eddie tried to resist the inevitable for six weeks. _It’s too soon,_ he told Bev. _What if they don’t like me? We should have separate lives. It’s not even that serious!_

It was that serious. It was always going to be that serious.

Bev had clocked him the moment she laid eyes on him outside her door. 

With a shit-eating grin she had said, “So, shotgun wedding?” and ushered him into her loft. 

Eddie’s _fuck you_ response had sounded a little too much like _maybe._

The air is still warm and crisp outside when they stumble out onto the sidewalk. It’s the kind of summer that Eddie had hoped for the year he left Myra, clear and optimistic, with a light breeze and a soft sun. Cloudless skies, the city abuzz around them, a sense of freedom. 

They say their goodbyes, which means they hug everyone and try to leave about seven times before they finally manage to tear themselves away from the group with promises of doing this again soon. 

“It’s like a fucking family reunion every single time,” Richie says as they walk away. 

Eddie snorts. “Don’t act like you don’t love it. You thrive on this shit.” 

“What can I say, I’m a social butterfly.” 

“Yeah, I know. It’s exhausting.” 

“Pfft, you hang out with those guys more than me.” 

“Not my fault that you’ve chosen to live life as an extroverted recluse.” 

Richie laughs his familiar laugh, charming as always. Charming as everything he does is charming, in the kind of way that Eddie struggles to explain to others but that has cemented itself as an unshakeable truth. He’ll find himself watching Richie do inane shit like pouring coffee or tying his shoes and think to himself, _holy shit, what a guy._

It would embarrass him if he wasn’t so in love. 

“That’s actually my LinkedIn description,” says Richie. “‘Extroverted recluse’.” 

“No, it’s not.” 

“How would you know?” 

“I was the one who set up your fucking LinkedIn profile, Richard.” 

Richie makes doe eyes at him and asks, “Babe, won’t you just be my manager? You already do so much managing.” 

“I’d sooner die.” 

“Harsh.” 

“What’s wrong with Steve? You like Steve.” 

“I tolerate Steve.” 

Eddie makes a derisive noise. “Steve tolerates _you.”_

“Barely,” Richie says. 

“I’m not going to manage you,” Eddie tells him. “It wouldn’t be good for my work-life balance.” 

As a matter of fact, Eddie didn’t have much of a work-life balance before he had a _boyfriend._ (He likes to say the word. It makes him feel a little giddy and a lot stupid.) 

Now he leaves work early on Fridays and comes in late on Mondays, and the time in between belongs to Richie. The balance might be skewed a little towards life. 

“Well,” Richie sighs, sounding put out. “Let me know if you change your mind. And in the meantime, maybe you should give Steve my LinkedIn password.” 

Eddie narrows his eyes. “I don’t trust him with that.” 

“Ah! You could be my social m—” 

“I’m not going to be your social media manager.” 

“You’re such hard work.” 

It’s nearly 2am by the time they make it to bed because Richie insisted on heating up leftover pasta and then making out with Eddie against the kitchen counter for fifteen minutes. It would be disingenuous for Eddie to complain since he was an enthusiastic participant of both activities, but by the time his head hits the pillow he is metaphorical inches away from passing out. 

In his state of exhaustion, he is only vaguely aware of how Richie curls around him like an awkwardly-shaped blanket and nuzzles into his neck. 

“Love you, Eds,” Richie whispers into his skin. 

“M’love you,” Eddie mumbles and reaches clumsily for Richie’s hand so he can intertwine their fingers. 

At another point in time, some six months prior to this moment, this shared life, Eddie Kaspbrak steps out into the snow and thinks of the future. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading, despite the unexpected 2 month hiatus it went on. 
> 
> I've since started a social media AU called Killing Eds where Richie is an assassin and Eddie isn't, which you can find [here.](https://twitter.com/killingedsAU)


End file.
